Hermione Bourbon
by sephacles
Summary: In which Hermione gets a family. A messed-up pureblood family of questionable morals, but still a family. Throw in her ragtag group of friends, and they're all off to save the world. Slytherin!Pureblood!Hermione
1. Chapter 1

**_1_**

The countertops sparkled, the floor was freshly mopped, the stove, microwave and windows were clean. It was ten in the morning and Hermione Granger didn't know what to do. Pros of summer holiday: plenty of time to get through chores. Cons: boredom, no school.

Hermione plopped down on the couch and stared at the white doily on the coffee table. Eyed it steadily until it rose off, hovered above the table, twirled in the air. She didn't really understand what she was doing, or why she could do it, but her touch was instinctive, familiar. As far as entertainment went, lace doily was as good as the living-room got.

The sound of a door banging open made her bolt upright. She straightened out the crocheted doily on the table and put on a bright smile just as the door jerked open. "Good morning," she greeted.

Her grandmother headed straight for the kitchenette, her footsteps creaking the wood floor. As usual, without answering or smiling or even nodding.

A familiar feeling rose, pushing up like a budding flower.

 _I wish she loved me._

Hermione squashed it down, then stomped on it for good measure.

"Bread or oatmeal?" her nan's voice came out muffled from the cupboard.

"Bread, please."

"Fruit?"

"Yes. Please."

She produced a slice of bread, handing it without removing her head from beneath the shelf.

"Can I have some butter?... Just a little bit? Please?"

"Hrmph."

Hermione nibbled on thinly-buttered bread on the couch while listening to her nan go through her routine of preparing her breakfast. It was always scrambled eggs, oatmeal topped with yogurt and fruit, three bialys, a cup of tea. And soon came the whisking sound of eggs being beaten in a metal bowl, the clunk of a pan taken down from the hanging rack. The _click_ of the stove being turned on. The rustling of the kettle being filled up with water while the scrambled eggs fizzled and sputtered in the frying pan. Slowly the hissing of water boiling died down. Now Nan was scooping out oatmeal from box to bowl, pouring the hot water, stirring. A _click_ as she shut the stove off and slid the eggs onto a plate. Silverware clunk as she arranged her breakfast on a tray. The thud of her heels on the floors. The _whoosh_ of the fridge door being swung open.

Then silence.

Hermione waited for the subtle rubberised squish-push of the door being shut. It didn't come.

Instead, "When did you wake up?"

"Eight, why?"

A pause. "Did you touch anything in there?"

Hermione thought of when she'd opened the fridge earlier that day, of the packet of cream crackers and the two slices of roast turkey and of her empty, aching stomach. "No," she lied, her breath catching. "No, I didn't."

Nan slammed the refrigerator door shut. "There's food missing. The turkey. I don't like being lied to! You little—"

She broke off. Hermione watched her chest fill, a conscious inhale. Then the slow exhale as no doubt she counted to ten. Wondering yet again how to survive an unwanted orphaned granddaughter.

"Tell me, girl," she said at last. "How long have you lived here?"

"I'm sorry."

"That's not what I'm asking you."

"Years, Nan."

"In all that time, what's the only thing I've asked of you?"

"That I listen to you."

Nan smacked her palm on the countertop. "And?"

"That I clean the house."

 _"And?"_

"That I don't lie to you."

"I don't ask too much of you, do I?" Her voice was dangerously low. "You've lived here for a long time. You had no one, and I took you in. Nobody wanted you, not even your _own_ parents. They threw you away like a bag of stinking rubbish, but _I_ kept you."

Hermione stared.

"You have to learn to respect other people's things."

"Yes. I'm sorry. I... I won't do it again. I promise."

"I should think not," Nan agreed. For one moment, Hermione actually thought she might get away with it, but then she added, "Now go get it."

Hermione stood and walked slowly to the bathroom. A broom hung from a hook by the door, alongside a squeegee mop and a long-handled dustpan. It was a good broom, with a gloss wood handle and a sturdy straw-sweeper end. Her fingers shook as she reached out for it.

In the living-room she put it in Nan's outstretched hand, stripped off her shirt then turned around to give her back. And tried to concentrate on the wall rather than the sharp pain.

. . .

School had finally come.

Hermione sat with an open textbook and a bunch of notebooks sprawled across the table, in her pyjamas, listening to her grandmother cursing up a storm as she tried to find her shoes.

The summer had been unusually hot that year, with record-breaking temperatures in August. The heat put Rosalind Granger in bad moods. When she opened her mouth, nothing but complaints spewed out. Everything, according to her, was wrong. Hermione was careless, she left a sponge on the table, how dared she? She slouched when she walked, she'd become a hunchback if she wasn't careful. She was greedy, stuffing herself with porridge at dinner. She was scrawny. Why couldn't she be more like Mrs Roberts's daughter? Next to her she looked like a rat, Nan said, a drowned rat with bushy hair.

It was a trying time. Hermione did a good job of avoiding trouble—especially after her rookie mistake with the ham. She'd had such a nasty whupping the bruises hadn't totally faded yet, but then again legs and back always took the longest to heal. Staying out of the way was easier now that school had started. The transition from primary to secondary school had gone better than expected. The secondary school was massive and they'd served Sunny Delight drinks and flapjacks at break the first day. Hermione's uniform—brown skirt, white shirt, maroon sweatshirt—was secondhand, but nicer than her usual clothes. Her classmate Emily Taylor had told her that older kids flushed the ugliest Year Sevens' heads down the bog, but it had been two weeks and Hermione's head remained un-flushed. Emily seemed dead upset about this. All in all, classes had been great.

A blast of fresh air rushed in as the front-door opened. "Come here!"

Hermione dragged her feet to the hallway where Nan waited, wearing a beige knitted jumper and an irritated expression. "Clean the kitchen while I'm gone. I'll be back tonight, but you know how it goes. Don't leave the house, don't touch the television, and don't steal food from the fridge or else... Now lock the door, don't let anybody in."

Hermione stood at the window and watched her grandmother scuttle in the street and disappear out of sight. Then she put her homework away, turned on the television and emptied her secret stash of food. She fully intended to slob about watching telly all day and committing forbidden acts. Who would tell on her? The furniture? She started with some Saturday morning cartoons, munching her way through a packet of Jaffa Cakes she'd found in the neighbour's skip.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were wicked, though they had nothing on the moves boys at school would pull on you. Just last year Larry had grabbed her in a wrestling move, she'd flown and hit a fence so hard an old nail ripped her thigh. Larry's mum had said she should go to the hospital for stitches and a tetanus shot. Nan hadn't even noticed the gash.

She wasn't one of those fussy grandmothers—actually she would rather not be a grandmother. She was ashamed of Hermione, embarrassed to have her in the family, and, when drunk, occasionally wished her dead.

"You should have died in that accident," she'd sob, clutching at her bottle of gin. "Christ, you should have."

These open exchanges of family sentiment always left Hermione feeling warm and fuzzy all over. _At least she's honest_ , she thought as she licked chocolate off her fingers. Honest and volatile and unhappy with insults spewing out of her like missiles, that was her grandmother all right. But Hermione thought she knew why; Nan hated her for being alive while her son was dead—and for being adopted. Must not forget that one. Hermione wouldn't care about being adopted if it wasn't for Nan reminding her at every turn. She didn't remember specifically being told, it was as though she'd always known, just as she'd always known that her dad and mum were dentists who worked in the same company and died in a car crash on the way home from that Company Christmas.

While _they_ spurred murky and disjointed images in her mind, Hermione knew nothing about her real parents—except that they didn't want her. That was not to say she didn't think about them from time to time. Or wonder who they were. Or if they were even alive. She wanted answers, names, faces. She didn't have that. She had a hundred questions and an ancient blue-and-gold locket.

Hermione leaned back on the couch and pulled her locket out from under her shirt. It'd been round her neck when she was found in the street. It was, for lack of a better word, a weird thing. Once, Hermione, angry at her grandmother for nagging at her and at her mum and dad for being dead and then at her other parents for throwing her away, had taken the locket and flushed it down the toilet. The next morning, however, she had got up to find the locket under her pillow. That had spooked her so bad she never tried getting rid of it again.

She tilted it slightly so the blue stone caught the morning light and glimmered silvery, and, not for the first time, noticed it was beautiful. She didn't understand why her real parents would give it to her. What did it mean? _'Farewell'_? Or maybe Nan was right, maybe it meant _'We can't keep you because you're a bag of stinking rubbish, but here's a necklace. No hard feelings'._

These people might be the most selfish people in the world. Hermione knew that, and liked to believe that she hated them, but in truth whenever she thought of them she just had that indescribable emotion. A violent flash of loneliness, making her feel all hollow inside. Empty, in some horribly deep way, as if someone had taken an ice-cream scoop and carved her out. A question bubbled forth, one she'd lost count how many times she'd asked herself.

 _What is wrong with me?_

Excellent. Another morning, same old depressing rubbish. Hermione focused back on the television screen and engrossed herself in cartoons. Watching Inspector Gadget defeat evil made her realize that life could be worse. For example, she could have had to stop her archenemy from stealing the Queen's jewelled crown.

" _You must get the Crown Jewels_ ," Dr Claw lisped on screen. " _I desired them since I was a child_."

His acolyte was mystified. " _You were a child, Boss?_ "

Hermione was wondering why Inspector Gadgets' niece Penny even wasted her time telling grownups stuff—they never believed her and were too useless to help—when someone knocked on the front door. Loudly. She figured it was just some kids being idiots and didn't even think of answering it.

But then it went on.

What, could she not even watch her Saturday morning cartoons in peace? Was nothing sacred anymore?

 _Knock. Knock. Knock._

"Piss off," Hermione muttered when the noise had the audacity to repeat itself. What if it was one of her grandmother's friends? She didn't want to talk to them. Last time she met Mrs Roberts in the street she spoke and spoke about herself and her cats for what seemed like three whole goddamned hours.

 _KNOCK. KNOCK. KNO—_

"I'M COMING!"

Hermione huffed and stomped out, muttering things like _bloody hell_ and _can't catch a breath, can we_ and _if it's Mrs Roberts there'll be a death in this neighbourhood_ all the way to the front-door.

. . .

Having been Hogwarts School's deputy headmistress for quite some time now, Minerva McGonagall was one of the few who did the customary house-visit and delivered acceptance letters to muggle families.

Thusly, she wasn't exactly a stranger to certain things. Muggles categorically refusing magic's existence. Muggles reading the supply list and going "Parchment? Quills? This isn't the Middle Ages!". Muggles and their overexcited children getting lost in Diagon Alley. Muggleborn children smuggling in non-magical pets, puppies, turtles and guinea pigs—not to mention all those calculators Argus Filch had confiscated over the years. Muggleborn children all decked out in flashy scuba gear ready to do some diving in the black lake because they wanted to meet the mermaids. Muggleborn children asking her if it was possible to turn a pumpkin into a carriage with the spell "bibbidi-bobbidi-boo". Muggleborn children enchanting electric objects to work in the castle without considering their capacity to get sentient over time—students still told horror stories in whispers about the Attacking Toaster.

Muggleborn children flat-out refusing to open the door wasn't something Minerva McGonagall had ever experienced before.

She glanced at the side to make sure she had the right address. Number One, a redbrick terrace house, squashed between two other houses, with a patch of front garden.

It checked out, so she knocked again, firmly, steadily, and heard the sounds of someone shuffling from the other side of the door. Instead of the door opening, she listened to the metal covering scrape back from a peephole. A childish, high-pitched voice came from inside. "If you're selling, we're not interested."

Professor McGonagall took it all in stride. "I'm not selling anything," she answered briskly. Did she look like a saleswoman? "Miss Granger, I suppose. I have a—"

"How do you know me?"

"My name is Minerva McGonagall." She couldn't repress the disapproving tone in her voice. "I am a professor, at a boarding school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at this school—your new school, if you would like to come. I need to talk to your parents—"

A muffled huff cut her off.

"I want you to know," Hermione Granger said from the other side of the door, "I can smell a scam a mile away."

Professor McGonagall was finding it it difficult to negotiate with a solid wood door, but she did her best. "Well, I never! I've come all the way to your home, because you have qualities we are looking for. Really, now, Miss Granger, what would I get out of it? I'm sure your parents would want to know about it. Given that, do you think I can come in?"

That reply earned her silence, as if the girl were seriously thinking it over.

"Look, lady, I don't know you. You could be one of those serial-killers we hear about all the time on the eight o'clock news."

For Merlin's sake. "Believe me, I have no intention of killing anyone, especially not someone like you. Let me in and I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Now open the door, will you?"

More silence. Some shuffling noises, as if the girl was dragging her feet. Finally, three metal thunks as steel bolt locks drew back. The rasp of a chain being temperamentally released. A key turning twice. Seemed the Grangers took their home security seriously.

The door was flung open and a tiny brown-haired girl stood there, arms crossed, eyes wary. "You can come in. But don't try anything, all right? I'm pretty sure I can bring down some skinny old lady if need be."

With a slight effort, the professor refrained from answering. She stepped gingerly into the house as Hermione Granger went back to work on the bolt lock and chain.

Inside, a small, cramped corridor led to a small, cramped bedroom with the door partly opened. Straight ahead, the family room was half kitchenette, boasting a faded tartan couch, three wooden chairs and a coffee table covered in lace doilies. Walls were painted a drab pumpkin-orange, and the windows were trimmed out with scalloped shades made from a sunflower-covered fabric. The telly was on, blaring away on top of a cheap microwave stand. Hermione took a second to cross the space and snap it off. Then she asked if she'd like some tea or coffee.

"Tea, thank you."

Professor McGonagall sat on the couch while the girl shuffled off to a strictly utilitarian kitchenette with plain white cupboards and cheap orange countertops. The air held odours of bleach and medication mingled with the scents of frying oil and spice.

The Grangers have sickle-pinching ways, she concluded. Money was tight. Or perhaps the household was badly managed. Having run an entire school all too often without enough gold, she recognized the signs of economies being practiced. But the hardships that warlocks could endure in wartime were certainly not appropriate for growing children. So far her opinion of these muggles was low—though she could not fault them on cleanliness. She scrutinised the room as though she were inspecting the Gryffindor common room.

It was spotless.

"Miss Granger, where are your parents?"

"My grandmother will be home soon." Hermione set a loaded tray on the table and sat on a chair. "My parents died in a car crash. When I was five."

The professor murmured condolences as she helped herself to a chipped cup of pale tea. She took a sip. Dull-looking, but strong in flavour. Much like its maker, actually. At first glance, Hermione Granger appeared a scrap of a girl, lost in washed-out pyjamas too big for her, but there was nothing dull about her spirit. Looked like a needy kitten… behaved like the feral kneazles skulking around Hogsmeade.

"I might as well start explaining now. As I told you my name is Minerva McGonagall—Professor McGonagall, and I teach at Hogwarts, which is a school for wizards and witches."

Hermione didn't say a word throughout her clipped explanation that there were witches and wizards still living in secret all over the world, and her reassurances that they weren't dangerous like muggles portrayed them in stories because the Ministry of Magic took responsibility for the wizarding community. Hogwarts was, she explained, one of the finest schools in the world where students were taught a variety of lessons from making pineapples dance across desks to learning about creatures such as unicorns and dragons.

Hermione regarded her, stony-eyed. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Of course not. Look."

And she turned the sugar bowl into a guinea pig.

"But," said Hermione breathlessly, watching the guinea pig gnawing on the corner of the tray with a mixture of awe and shock, "but why—are you telling me—I can do _magic_?"

The professor smiled for the first time since she'd entered the house. "Absolutely. And at Hogwarts, we will teach you not only to use magic, but also to control it."

"When do I start? Hogwarts, you say? Where is it? In London?"

"Scotland. Only eleven-year-old students attend Hogwarts, and term has already started. Given that you've just turned eleven you'll actually board next year—"

"Um, what do you mean, eleven?"

"Your birthday, Miss Granger. Do try to keep up."

"How do you _know_ that? When is it?"

"When children of Britain show magical abilities, their names and birth-dates are written down in our records. And when they turn of age—and in your case, on 19 September—we offer them a place at Hogwarts. You do know your own birthday, don't you?"

"I do now," Hermione said, and she left it at that.

The professor pulled out an elegant-looking white letter and gave it over.

 _Miss H. Granger_

 _The living-room_

 _1 Virginia Street,_

 _Bow,_

 _London_

"All the details are in here. You will leave from King's Cross Station on the first of September, of next year. There is already a train ticket too. If your grandmother wants you to, of course. Muggles—non-magical folk, that is, they have a harder time accepting magic than us. It's quite rare when a magical child is born of muggle parents, just like you. Muggleborns, we call them."

"Maybe I'm not completely muggleborn," said Hermione, her mind spinning with the possibilities. "I'm adopted—that's why I didn't know about my birthday. I only knew I was born round September. And it'd be better if you didn't tell my grandmother about the witch bit. She wouldn't understand, like you said."

 _Nothing a good spanking won't cure_ , Nan would most likely say about magic.

"Certainly not. Mrs Granger may not be your grandmother by blood, but she most certainly is your legal guardian, and there's no way around her consent. I am sure she would understand the situation, if I, an adult, would explain it to her."

"She won't listen, I'm telling you."

Professor McGonagall didn't look convinced. "We shall see about that when she comes home," she said in a final tone. "By any chance, you don't know your birthparents' names, do you? They could be wizards—"

"They could be dead for all I know," Hermione cut her off. "I don't know anything. They found a necklace and some sheets on me when I was a baby. That's all."

"Found it on you? So you weren't exactly given to the orphanage?"

"No. They found me like most kids."

"On the doorstep?"

"Abandoned in the street."

Hermione shrugged, acting as if Professor McGonagall's tiny gasp and her admission meant nothing—even though it did.

Who'd want to admit that? She was only a baby when she was wrapped in white sheets and left in some cold street. Worst wasn't even the weather; it was wondering how anyone could just leave a baby out there, in the dirt and dark, for some big dog to eat.

"I was about a year old when Mum and Dad got me," she said aloud, "they're all I know."

"I see. Perhaps that necklace is some kind of family heirloom. I know that muggles also have them. Is there any name on it?"

"No. And it's broken, anyway." Hermione pulled the blue locket out from under her shirt and unclasped the golden chain around her neck. "You can open it, see—but I've tried lots of times and it won't budge."

Professor McGonagall weighed it in her hand. It was old and valuable-looking, made of a sapphire stone, and imbedded around the edge with gold. "Goblin-wrought, obviously," she commented, and Hermione nodded like she perfectly understood what a goblin was. Then she tried to open it from all the sides—with no luck—before taking out a wooden wand and tapping the locket, tracing shapes with the tip, all the while muttering unintelligible words, and then smoke was erupting from the wand, encasing the locket until all of it was covered in a glow of light spreading to the chain.

With a final tap of the wand, the light vanished, and they could clearly hear an unlocking noise.

Hesitantly, Hermione put the locket on her knee. It was hot to the touch. With a shaky breath, she opened it.

 ** _Nous N'oublions Pas_**

She brushed her fingers across the carved words, wondering their meaning, wondering who chose to write them here. A photograph was fitted on the other side. She turned it around and stared at the people forever captured by the camera's lens.

It was a young couple. A lovely, dark-haired woman wearing a blue skirt flowing around her calves stood next to a built, tanned man, his white shirt loose at the collarbone and cuffed at the elbows. He had glanced down while the photograph was being taken. Honey-blond hair tumbled over his brown eyes, the hint of a smile tugged at his lips. As for the woman, she flashed a double-dimpled grin at the camera, eyes alight with dancing sparks. It was impossible not to think of a firework.

Hermione was transfixed by their expressions, their fingers entwined in a gesture so natural they didn't even seem aware of doing it. Oh, but how happy they looked. There was real love there. A painful knot lodged in her throat. She drew her eyes up, tried to swallow, and met the professor's gaze. Whatever was in her face made her push the locket away.

The professor reached for it. She read the French words, extricated the picture from the locket, scanned it briefly and turned it over to see if there was anything written on the back. Nothing. She moved to return it to its place but stopped short: in that empty space was engraved a name.

 ** _Louise Sirona de Bourbon_**

 ** _19.09.79_**

Minerva McGonagall removed her spectacles. Methodically, she polished the lenses with her lace kerchief, then balanced them back on her nose.

She eyed the name again.

 _Bourbon!_ was her first thought, followed shortly by _old French pureblood_ , which collided with _Death-Eaters!_ and produced the baffling thought of _is this girl related to them?_ which was most logical, so her brain jumped to _if she is the Bourbons' child then what in Merlin's name is she doing here?_ and realized only the people involved could offer an explanation, and about that time she registered that Hermione had leaned in to see what she was staring at.

"Louise?... Could it be my name? Could they be my pa—" She broke off, unable to continue. Her hand pressed over her mouth, her other arm curled around herself. Tears leaked from her eyes.

Minerva gave her a minute. The girl pulled it together. Chin coming up, shoulders squaring off. She didn't understand the story here, she had a lot of questions, actually. But by all appearances, Hermione Granger, Bourbon—whoever she was, she had been raised right. Eleven years old, but she was tough.

"Pompous name," Hermione finally said. "These people look fancy, too. Do you reckon they could be my parents?"

"Let's not lose our heads, Miss Granger. All of this is very unexpected. See, the Bourbons are a French family. An old, wizarding French family."

"Do you mean... they're alive?"

"To my knowledge, yes. I don't care for politics, but I know for a fact that Mr Bourbon is a representative of the French Ministry to the International Confederation of Wizards. Rather young here... I do think it's him. Merlin! What a small world."

Alive. Hermione felt it like an ache at first, a strange pressure building behind her eyes and her teeth. It spread along her skin, a prickling flush of anger and heat and _something_ , and then the floor shuddered. The tremors shook pots from their hooks, spoons and forks in their drawers. The lightbulb swung on its ceiling cord, the windows rattled, and then the professor reached out and poked Hermione hard in the shoulder with her wand. Everything went still.

"That's quite enough of that," the professor said disapprovingly. "Poor house has troubles enough without you having some sort of childish tantrum. You don't want to wake up any mice."

Hermione couldn't help it; she dropped her head back against the couch and started to laugh. After a moment the professor scoffed too, her eyes softening a fraction.

"Why did they give me up for adoption," Hermione asked at last in a quiet voice, "in another _country?"_

"What you must understand, Miss Granger—or Miss Bourbon, is that it might not have been intentional. You don't know but we were at war, years ago."

"War? What happened?"

"About ten years ago now, there was this—dark wizard, and his army. He wanted power, and planned a revolution against the Ministry of Magic... Those were dark days. Cold, dreary days. He started taking over the country, killing whoever stood up to him. Simply horrifying, every week, news came of deaths, muggles and wizards alike, disappearances, torturing..." She trailed off. "What I mean is that life sometimes separates us from our loved ones. I doubt your parents ever wanted to give you up, as you put it."

The professor gestured toward the locket, reminiscing as hundreds of thoughts and faces and names and deaths and memories fought for room in her head, before she stated in a firm voice, as if her words held an intangible truth, "Family is a responsibility that wizards don't take lightly. We take care of our own."

* * *

 ** _A/N: Pureblood Hermione gets sorted in Slytherin, yaddi yadda you know the drill BUT she's French because why not? So here is an entire fic about that. Reviews are welcome._**

 ** _Addendum: To Guest and uqiam and others who might've recognized this fic: the old version doesn't exist anymore, because my stupid ass accidentally deleted the wrong fic yes RIP me I'm so stupid kill me now. And so friends asked that I repost. I'm probably even more frustrated than you._**


	2. Chapter 2

**_2_**

Hermione did a magic trick.

Nobody noticed.

Boys and girls, all in the same brown uniform, on foot or on bicycles, left the school gates, swarming in a thousand different directions. None of them noticed the leaves swishing unnaturally fast at her feet, a swirl of scattered gold coins.

A heavy shoulder slammed into Hermione from behind. She stumbled, nearly pitched face-first into the ground and lost her focus. The leaves fell limply, turning slowly on their way to the ground.

A man glared down at her. "Watch your bloody self!"

"Why don't you watch your feet?" Hermione snapped, and took some satisfaction from the surprise that came over his face. People, particularly grown men dressed in overcoats, didn't expect lip from girls.

The man got over the novelty and gave her a dirty look as he disappeared into the crowd of parents holding plastic umbrellas and waiting to collect their children.

Hermione and started down the street, sticking her fists in her pockets. Her coat wasn't completely up to the job of battling the chill rain, but she hunched her shoulders and soldiered through. Autumn had fallen in London, fleeting and sappy-sweet with reddish-gold light and cool breezes and its carpet of multicoloured leaves crunching under her feet.

"Oi, Granger!"

A black, burly boy was waving at her from across the street. "We're hitting the video arcade then McDonald!" he bellowed. "Wanna come with?"

"No, thank you!" Hermione yelled back, then made a show of turning out her empty coat pockets.

Larry had a good laugh at her expense, shrugged his shoulders and walked up to the kids at the bus stop.

Hermione watched them chatting and joking around with envy. Video games and fast-food, how lucky. She'd do anything for fries. Salt-encrusted, greasy, golden fries. Dipped in ketchup. Smothered in mayonnaise. And a burger dripping cheese on a white bun and piled high with tomatoes, onions, and pickles.

Hermione was so lost in her daydream that she tripped on the sidewalk and fell to her knees. A groups of girls snickered behind her, but Hermione told herself, _301 days left until Hogwarts._ She had made a calendar which she kept rolled up at the bottom of her school bag. Every morning she marked off another square. The countdown began the day she met Minerva McGonagall. She'd marked off fifty-one calendar-days since. The old routine had established itself again. School, home, sleep, repeat.

She might not have a family, might not have friends, but she will go to Hogwarts next year. Hermione straightened and briskly walked on, soon making her way to the big green overflowing skip on the street corner outside her house. After making sure no one was looking, she pushed open the lid, climbed up, and dived inside to search. Cold moisture tingled on her skin as something mushy swamped her fingers.

Hermione Granger, intrepid skip-diver, didn't even flinch. The first time she had done this the slightest touch of anything wet had made her whip her hand and wipe it frantically on her clothes. Now not even a rat would stop her. She could never get over the way people threw away perfectly good food: apples, hard-boiled eggs, peanut-butter crackers, sliced pickles, cartons of milk, sandwiches with just one bite taken out because some tosser didn't like the olives in the cheese. Today she found two pears and cardboard boxes filled with chocolates. Hermione smiled cheerfully as she jumped down and polished off her tasty finds. It was like takeaway, but free. She pigged out on chocolates all the way home.

When she walked in, her grandmother was watching the telly and taking swigs from a bottle. She noticed Hermione silently staring from the doorway. "Girl, I'm seventy-five," she said. "It won't be the git that gets me, all right. Unless it's poisoned!"

Poison _._ Hermione kicked off her shoes. An interesting idea.

"Do you know, I ran into Judith at the store today. Had a nice little chat."

That was never good. With the back of her hand Hermione discreetly wiped her lips, still greasy from the chocolate.

"You know what she said?"

Something that was bound to make life less enjoyable?

"She mentioned how she saw you with that nigger again... What's his name, Barry? No, Larry. The one from your class. Is that it?"

Hermione didn't reply.

Her grandmother took a long, contemplative swallow. "Keep this up and people will say we're bad company. I won't stand for it. How can you stomach the smell, anyhow?" She chuckled to herself as she grabbed the remote and changed channels. _Click_. "Not only do these people stink, but they're lazy halfwits." _Click_. _Click_. "Judith told me a drunk nigger took a whiz in her rose bushes last week. Christ, this country's going to the dogs."

A pressure built in Hermione's chest and she had to let it out. "You're really not supposed to use that word," she said. "Black people are just like us, except for the colour of their skin."

Her grandmother slapped her across the face, hard enough to stun Hermione for a moment while fingers dug into her hair and dragged her to a cabinet.

Hermione was a witch, she had quick fingers and she knew how to hide in cabinets, under tables and behind dust-heavy curtains. She knew not to sneeze.

But she still flinched and begged and cried when she was being shoved into the cupboard under the sink.

"You need a little time-out to think about your behaviour," Nan said, locking the door, her voice muffled.

Hermione felt sick. It was five o'clock and she could be locked away for hours until it was time to go to school again. For a whole night. The cupboard smelled like dead air, like pee, like roaches. There was darkness and her tiny, hollow cry, "Nan? Please let me out of here?"

And then, for the longest time, there was nothing.

Nan unlocked the door after ten hours, opened it wide and beckoned her out with a dismissive hand. She'd kept her locked for a night, without food or water or room enough to sleep. Hermione had survived afternoons in close, dark places, had thought herself clever and crafty when she was hiding in crawl spaces and beneath stairs, but she had never been locked against her will before.

It was this unfairness that she would remember for days, not the pain or the hunger, and when she let the strange man inside the house a week later she'll have to fight the triumphant, daring tilt to her smile.

It was half past three on a Monday afternoon when he knocked on the front door of the house.

"Don't answer," Nan ordered from the couch. She was sitting on the couch, swaddled in blankets and eating bacon slices Hermione had no right to. "He's only here to sell some rubbish thing we don't need."

Hermione pushed the curtain aside and looked at the stranger again, a fair, stiff-backed man in an expensive-looking coat. The last time anyone but the postman came to the house; it had been the witch-professor of Hogwarts. There was almost something surreal in the sight of him, just standing there. Waiting. "He isn't carrying anything. If he's a salesman, he must not be very good one."

"You hear somebody ask your opinion, girl? I bet he's hiding bogus papers. I bet he visits all the good people and tries to scam them out of their life savings."

Hermione looked again but the stranger was gone.

Evening was falling and Nan was asleep when he came back. Hermione had been watching the street, the street lamps flickering, blearily buzzing to life, mosquitoes and flies gathering to their light, the beer cans clattering along the pavement and dead leaves swirling in their trail. One moment the doorway was empty—the next the stranger was standing there as if an invisible blind had been yanked up.

Hermione was out of the living-room and the stranger's arm was raised to knock when she opened the door. The sky was a periwinkle evening blue behind him. He lowered his arm.

She was struck with a waft of coffee, some kind of sweet caramel and when her eyes had adjusted to the streets lights, she found herself face-to-face with the man in her locket.

. . .

All the times Hermione'd imagined meeting the Bourbons, she tried to think of everything that could go wrong. She'd pictured the couple telling her she wasn't related to them. She'd imagined Mr Bourbon admitting to being her father and not wanting anything to do with her. She'd even figured he might think she was crazy.

Now that he was here, she studied him cautiously. What she knew about wizards could have been stuffed into a thimble. She had a vague impression that they were distracted and old with rumpled faces and long beards. Mr Bourbon was far from that. He was handsome, clean-shaven, well-dressed and couldn't be much over thirty. The only thing untidy about him was his short tawny blond hair, tousled as if he'd been in a windstorm.

"This is a prized family heirloom," Nathaniel Bourbon said, sounding even posher than he looked, holding up her locket. "A blood test will tell us."

He was... aloof. Almost hostile. Hermione rethought the wisdom of letting a total stranger in the house. "Well," she said with an anxious little cough. "We'll have to go to the hospital, I think?"

"No need," Mr Bourbon stated. He pulled out a reddish wand and waved it in a circle. With a _pop_ , a tiny vial of a lavender-coloured substance materialized on the table. Next he fished a knife out of his pocket and extended his hand.

Tentatively, Hermione reached out. He cut a stinging line on the back of her arm, and she watched her blood drip into the vial, sizzling as each drop collided with the surface as though it was hot. He did the same with his own arm, and they waited silently as his blood fizzled completely into the liquid. Then, not unlike Professor McGonagall had done, he murmured words that seemed like Latin or Greek, and the vial flashed like some sort of chemical reaction.

Hermione waited and waited. Mr Bourbon didn't seem to want to say anything. He was just staring at the vial.

She cleared her throat. No reaction. No acknowledgement. She leaned forward, wanting to see what was the deal with that bloody liquid. Well, it had changed colours again, this time turning to blood-red. Still meant nothing to her.

Mr Bourbon was blank-faced. His lack of reaction was clearly disturbing. Then again, he wasn't your average man. Curling her lip, she shifted toward him, aiming to shake him by the shoulder, when he snapped his head back to hers, abruptly head-butting her in the process.

Hermione scowled, rubbing her forehead and glaring at him.

"The test is positive."

She glared some more. Then, what he'd said registered in her mind.

"Don't swoon on me now," he added with a choked laugh. There was something strange about his voice, as though his nose was stuffed up.

Hermione had never swooned in her life, not even when she was eight and her nan kicked her down the stairs; she didn't intend to start now. But her heart did beat faster. Her stomach did turn. She did look at him in a whole new way, with wide eyes. This man was her father.

She quelled that thought as soon as it came into her head.

 _He's not my father. He didn't want the job. He abandoned me in a dirty street._

Her not-father leaned forward, his height making it all the more intimidating. Hermione had to look up to meet his eyes, and she quickly found that the one thing more unsettling than his indifference was the chilling depth of his undivided attention.

She meant to speak before he did. "And," she said quickly, "what does it all mean?"

"This means," he bit off. "That you are my daughter."

"This isn't true." Hermione blundered back, the couch's springs groaning under her weight. "You're nothing to me, _nothing."_

There was shock on the man's face, shock and disbelief and, worst of all, hurt.

How _dared_ he be hurt? He wasn't the one who had been abandoned. Crumpled up and thrown away like used tissue paper.

"I understand," he said helplessly. "You have every right to be angry. But you have to know, neither your mother nor I had any ide—"

"You and your wife," Hermione said in a voice that was too loud and too hard, "are not my parents. Real parents don't abandon their babies."

Nathaniel Bourbon stared at the table for a moment before answering. "When the letter arrived," he said softly, "I didn't believe it, either. I was quite certain that it was a swindle, of the basest kind, attempting to play on my emotions as a prelude to blackmail. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time. The whole story was very plausible—but people can do incredible things thanks to technology these days." His eyes lifted back to hers. "I knew none of it could be true."

"Why not?"

"Because like my wife, my daughter—my baby—was dead."

Dead.

The word shivered through the flowery living-room. "That's absurd!"

"It is," said Nathaniel quietly, "what I was told."

Hermione didn't know what to say. She felt like she had been presented with her own tombstone. There was something disquieting about being told you were dead, even when you knew very bloody well you weren't.

"I've spent years believing that my dau—that _you_ were dead." His voice trembled. "I have tried to accept that fact, that you were gone, yet every time someone brought it up it just opened up that old wound. As if someone poured alcohol all over it. I ho—"

"Prove it," she blurted, unable to listen any longer.

"Prove it?"

She looked at him closely. His dark blond hair. Keen, brown eyes looked out over a straight nose that might have been drawn with a ruler. Thin lips and straight brows gave him a serious expression.

He _could_ be her father.

"I want to believe you're my father," she said slowly. "But how do I know that you're telling the truth? You just did your magical thing. I don't know a thing about magic. How am I just supposed to believe you? Prove it that you're my father. Or we can do a real test."

"This was a real test."

"I meant, a non-magical test. A muggle one."

"No need. I already know that you are my daughter. You do favour me but you have Marie's colouring."

"Who?"

"Marie Bourbon. Your late mother."

"All right, so I look like this woman. Doesn't prove anything."

A moment passed, a kaleidoscope of emotions crossed Nathaniel Bourbon's face. "I understand how confusing and unsettling this must be for you," he said slowly. "But first, I want you to know that you have been dearly missed. All these years and not a single day passed that I didn't think of you and your mother." He reached out as if to touch her arm but apparently thought better of it. "Far be it from me to scare you but I can't tell you how blessed I am. I hope you will one day forgive me for..." He raked a hand through his hair and exhaled harshly. "I thought you were dead. I didn't know... If I had known, if I'd had the slightest inkling, I would have come, Hermione. I swear it to you. I would have moved heaven and earth to find you."

Hermione felt a tightening in her chest, as if someone had pulled a rope round her, slipping the knot so that she couldn't breathe. _You have been missed._ "Prove it," she repeated.

Nathaniel wiped his face with his hand. "Your name is Louise de Bourbon," he said in a calmer tone. "Or at least, that is the name you were given at birth. You were born on September 19, 1979, to Lady Marie Bourbon and myself. Your mother died the following year, you were a few months old. We never found a body." He glanced around. "How did you wind up in this... warehouse?"

"I was adopted from an orphanage." Hermione saw his eyes widen then narrow. "Go on," she prompted. "What else?"

"What else shall I tell you... Your blood type is O positive."

"I don't know what my blood type is. Do you have anything else? None of this is helping."

He seemed to be thinking hard for a second, his eyes looking up at a point high on the wall. He snapped his fingers suddenly. " _Mais oui,_ I know, of course. You have a birthmark behind your knee."

 _How_ did he know that? Hermione did her best to keep a poker face and asked, "Which one?"

"Behind your right knee. It quite looks like a key, doesn't it? You also have moles. If they haven't disappeared, and if I'm not mistaken, just over your collarbone."

Hermione's breath caught in her throat. She glanced down at her knees, where she knew was a brown birthmark that did look like an old skeleton key. It wasn't very big, but she hated it all the same.

"Hermione," Nathaniel started, then caught himself. "I mean, Louise?"

"Hermione. I just... I'm used... Hermione."

"Hermione, you _are_ my daughter," he went on matter-of-factly. He reached into his coat and laid a photograph in front of her. "Our daughter."

Hermione recognized the woman named Marie, even if her dark hair was cut short in this picture, just below her ears. She was sitting on the carpeted floor of a living-room and holding a baby with a tuft of blond hair. Both of them looked healthy. Hermione picked up the picture, examined it more closely and breathed out. "Tell me about her. My... my mum."

"Your mother's name was Marie Gauthier. She was the daughter of an American witch and a French muggle, a politician, and I met her at Beauxbatons when we were children. We—"

"Beau-what?"

Nathaniel gave her an odd look. "Beauxbatons. Don't you—ah, I forgot. Muggles." He frowned thoughtfully. "Beauxbatons Academy is a wizarding school, like Hogwarts. The biggest in Europe, in fact. Your mother and I both studied there. We were married after we graduated and some years later, you were born."

"So I'm the daughter of a witch and a wizard?" asked Hermione, in shock. Yes, she knew she was in shock, because she was starting to believe in it all.

"You are," Nathaniel confirmed, smiling. "Two sets of parents in a lifetime. You are a lucky witch, don't you think? Well, or unlucky... It depends on how you look at it. Are they home? I would like to meet them, sweetheart."

Hermione blinked at the endearment. "Who? Mum and Dad—the Grangers? Oh, no, no. They passed away when I was five. Car crash. There's only my grandmother. And me. Obviously."

For a split second, she could have sworn a quick smile crossed his face. "My deepest condolences. This must have been really hard on you."

"No. Yes. Sorry, I'm a bit confused right now. This is absolute madness."

"There is nothing to be confused about," he said with a one-shoulder shrug. "After eleven years, my daughter has returned to me."

Hermione lifted her chin and spoke the words that felt like poison in her mouth, "So what, now?"

Her father—she couldn't believe that was possible—cocked an eyebrow.

"What happens now? Are you going back to France? What's going to happen to me?" she said in a rush. "Do you want me back? Am I going with you?" Her voice trailed off as her courage fizzled, and she held her breath, waiting. Waiting for an answer, waiting for a nice go to hell, waiting for something, anything.

She didn't know what to expect from her father, but certainly not laughter. "Oh, Hermione," he said with a charming grin. "Don't be silly, dear."

Hermione reddened, more out of shame than anything. He was right. Had she gone bonkers? How could she believe that a wizard like him would want anything to do with her? He probably had his life already in order. What did Professor McGonagall say again? International Wizards or something like that. Head of his house, whatever did that mean. He was an important wizard. Rich. Maybe he had remarried. Maybe he had other children.

"Can I keep the necklace, at least?" That was the only thing she could really call hers. She didn't want to part from it.

"The locket?" He sounded confused. "Of course, it is yours."

"Thanks. Aren't you going to tell my gran about this?"

He paused, and for a moment he looked almost bemused, as if he'd forgotten the elder Granger entirely and was struggling to place the name. "Maybe," he said finally. "We should leave tomorrow at the latest. We can sort things out from Bourges. Why, are you going to miss this muggle woman?"

Now it was her turn to be confused. "Where to?"

"Bourges," said Nathaniel readily. "Short for Château de Bourgogne-l'Archambaud. Ancient seat of the Bourbons in the countryside. The townhouse in Paris is Montignac House." He glanced around the living-room with distaste. "Or perhaps you would prefer to stay here with your... friends? I could buy a house near this neighbourhood. We could come visit whenever you want to."

"I'm going with you."

"What, do you still not believe I am your father?" She could hear the frustration in his voice. "Where can I find this muggle test you were talking about?" He looked down at his watch. "Eleven. All the muggle shops around here are closed by now, are they not?"

Hermione's mind spun in a thousand different directions and she grasped the first coherent words that blew past. "You want me to go with you. You want to bring me to France."

Silence followed.

"Of course you are coming with me! Where you belong."

Hermione's face went blank.

"I can see you're surprised. I'm surprised too." He cleared his throat and shifted uneasily. "I mean. France is a beautiful country blessed with great resources and people. I wanted to start with you moving into the chateau." She must have had an odd expression because he smoothly added, "Perhaps we should take time to acquaint ourselves with the situation. Although nothing would make me happier than have you come live with us. You are my daughter. Mine. You belong with us, with your family. So many people will want to meet you, my dear. Not to mention Lucas. I should have brought him along." He blinked. "Oh, gods. I'm babbling, aren't I? I'm truly babbling. What do you say, Hermione?"

Hermione laughed incredulously. "I don't care where we live. I'm still going to live with you, right?"

"If that is what you want."

"That's settled, then. When are we leaving? Should I call you Dad?"

Her father didn't answer. He just stared.

"Oh," said Hermione, crestfallen. "Are you worried that I'll be in your way? Because I won't. I know I won't. I could get a job of some kind, you know, so it won't even cost you much extra to have me living with you. I'm a hard worker, I sweep, mop and run errands. I can sleep on your couch. Not fussy when it comes to sleeping. I could sleep standing up in a closet if I had to. You won't even know I'm here. And about school—Professor McGonagall said Hogwarts was free. I've asked."

He let out a sound that could only be classified as a snort. "You will not sleep on a couch. You are a Bourbon. You will have a bedroom. Several, if you want."

"Are you serious? A whole room all to myself?"

A self-deprecating smile. "We are a wealthy family."

"Not just wealthy," said Hermione, squinting her eyes. "You must be really, really, really wealthy."

"I know that," he replied, a bit bemusedly.

"Do your toilets flush on their own?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You know. They probably have these sensor things. When your butt lifts off the seat, they flush. I've never tried them myself but I've seen them on the telly and I found myself thinking, what a great way to know if someone is rich or not. Self-flushing toilets."

"I do not have self-flushing toilets."

"No?" Hermione's expression fell. "That's all right, I mean. Doesn't bother me. A little manual labor never hurt anyone."

"I would hardly consider flushing a toilet a manual labor."

"Yes," she said patiently. "But if you were used to them flushing on their own you'd probably think so." She was about to add something when her stomach made a loud, rumbling noise. She flushed red at the sound, causing her father to chuckle out loud.

"I guess we worked up an appetite, I shall summon food."

He pulled out his wand again and a tray of drinks and snacks popped into existence. A plate of eggs, smoked meat, those weird flat French pancakes. "By all means, help yourself."

Hermione didn't need to be told twice. "Incredible," she said in admiration, examining the eggs. She _had_ to wrap these up in something and save them for later. "That's real food. It's like a fast-food drive through."

Her father cocked an eyebrow. He was sipping coffee from a white round cup. "What is that?"

"You know," she said, munching on a scrap of smoked meat. "When you want a burger and fries, but you don't want to get out of your car? You place the order and pay, then get your food, never putting out more effort than rolling down the window. I've always wanted to try it."

"I see," Nathaniel nodded slowly. He didn't see exactly what she was talking about, but it didn't matter. His daughter was alive. Alive, breathing, unhurt. That was all he needed to see or hear.

He remembered the very first time his baby girl had grabbed his finger, only one hour old, her impossibly tiny hand wrapping with determination around his ridiculously large index finger.

He watched those same fingers now as Hermione picked up a sandwich. Goodness, it made him want to weep. He couldn't help it. Eleven years had come and gone and he wanted to call it all back. He wanted to pull every single moment and hold them close because they should have been his. His daughter's first words, first steps, first day of school. How could a man felt so completely happy and utterly sad at the same time?

"Oh, no. I completely forgot."

He shook his head and looked up. "What did you forget, dear?"

"My grandmother." Hermione crossed her arms. "I don't think she'll let me go with you. Can't we go to town hall and get adoption papers?"

 _Let_ her go? The chuckle seemed to be plucked right out of him. "Don't fret. I can be very persuasive."

"You wouldn't be saying that if you knew Nan. She's—" Hermione grimaced. "She's a stubborn one."

"She can't be that bad."

His daughter's expression said _Oh, but she can._

"What is her name again?"

"Rosalind Granger."

"Where is this Mrs Granger? I'll speak to her now."

Hermione's eyes flicked to the corridor, and panic flooded her face. "I don't think that's a very good idea," she said in a tone that implied it was actually the worst idea one could have. "Nan doesn't like to be bothered when she's sleeping." Her expression turned hopeful. "Can you come back tomorrow? Or whenever you want, really."

"Yes," said Nathaniel, standing. He didn't know how he was going to stay away from that house now that he knew his daughter was there but he'll manage, somehow. He didn't want to rush her. So he'd give her a night.

"Say..."

He glanced down at Hermione, who was plucking at the sofa.

"You're not going to disappear again, right? You'll really come back?"

"Never," he said fiercely. "Now that I have found you, I will never go, Hermione."

She stared at him, stone-faced.

"Here, let us try this," he said, extending a hand toward her. "My name is Nathaniel, friends usually call me Nathan. Some call me Nate. I would really like you to call me Dad. May I be a part of your life?"

Tears dripped from her eyes, and she brushed them away with impatient hands. "You may," she choked out.

"Thank you," he said softly. "Now, may I ask for a hug?"

Hermione waited a beat, remembering all the times she'd thought of this moment. In daydreams where she imagined having parents who loved her unconditionally and wanted to protect her from the world. Every orphan, every foster kid had that same dream. Hope for someone to show up in their lives and say, _'There you are. I've been looking for you.'_

 _'You're safe now.'_

She opened her arms.


	3. Chapter 3

**_3_**

 _My name is Louise Bourbon. Louise Sirona Bourbon._

Hermione sank into the car's leather, clinging to her locket, while trying out her real name again and again, waiting to see if it would roll off her tongue. They were swiftly moving through London. She tried to absorb all the sights and sounds of the city, but it was too overwhelming. There was simply too much happening at once.

 _Louise. Sirona. Bourbon._

It still felt unnatural, stilted on her lips.

All of her life, she had considered herself two people: Hermione Granger and Girl—Rosalind didn't use her name much. Now, according to her father, Nathaniel Bourbon, she was actually three people: Louise Bourbon, Hermione Granger, and... well, _et al_. Girl. You. Rat. Idiot.

The notion confused her. She rested her head against the cool glass of the window. The gleaming black Mercedes was without a doubt the best car she had ever been in. This morning, she thought she had just woken up from the weirdest dream she'd ever had, but it turned out the scene awaiting her was even weirder: Nathaniel Bourbon, standing in the living-room, and Nan, hanging on his every word . Twenty minutes later, Hermione had packed up all her things and was saying goodbye to her blank-faced grandmother and following her father outside. There the car had awaited them and a man had placed her luggage in the boot before sitting in the driver's seat.

He was driving without talking and Hermione wondered if he was one of her father's friends and if he was coming with them to France. They were supposed to go to the Ministry then straight to Bourges, a centuries-old wizarding village in the French countryside.

They first stopped for breakfast. Hermione enjoyed a chocolate-chip muffin and apple juice while her father—toast and black coffee—told her more about floo networks and portkeys and other things that _sounded_ like English but meant nothing.

Their second and final stop was in an ordinary-looking street. Nathaniel stepped out of the car, and held the door for her, glanced around, up and down the street at houses and windows, and started to walk with a spring in his step.

Hermione followed suit, half-expecting him to burst into a Disney song at any moment now. It dawned on her that her hands were empty. "Oh—wait!"

"What is the matter?" her father asked curiously.

"I'll just go get my bag out of the car," she said, changing directions. "I forgot it—"

"No need. I'll have Felix bring it."

"Felix?"

"The chauffeur."

Hermione stared. "Will he bring me a burger and fries, too?"

"Of course, dear. Still hungry?"

"No. I was joking."

"I see. You are more like Lucas than I first thought."

Hermione didn't ask who Lucas was. Unreal, just unreal, she thought staring up at her father. She felt like the heroine of a movie, but that might be because of Nathaniel's resemblance to a prince. There was no denying that with his side-parted hair, aristocratic accent and money-is-nothing attitude, he was out of this world. After the chauffeur'd brought the bag, they crossed a road and headed toward a sloping little street. They were in Whitehall, and passersby—women, in particular—looked as they walked. Hermione couldn't blame them. Not only was her father wearing a tight-fitting blue-pinstripe suit and smiling, he insisted on holding her _hand_.

What the hell? If she were him, she wouldn't want to hold her hand. Her jumper was a size too big, her jeans frayed at the bottom, the sole of her left trainer came loose. She looked as she usually did—homeless. There wasn't a single thing that qualified her to act as Nathaniel Bourbon's daughter, except that she actually was his daughter.

She glanced up at the folded handkerchief poking out of his top pocket. "You're so dressed up. Jeans are much more comfortable, do you even _own_ a pair of jeans?"

"This is an odd question to ask at a time like this. But I do not."

"Most men own at least a dozen pair."

"Well, I'm not most men, am I?"

"You're certainly not," Hermione confirmed as they halted in front of an abandoned red telephone booth between two shabby-looking offices. She'd been told the entire British Ministry of Magic was underground, which explained why she hadn't seen any humongous government-owned building yet.

"This must be it," Nathaniel commented. "Visitor's entrance. I have never even used it, myself. Very pedestrian, isn't it?"

Hermione was about to ask how many levels there were when a bespectacled woman hurried into the telephone box. A moment later, the box trembled and it sank slowly into the ground out of sight.

"Doesn't look safe to me," she said dubiously. What was the oxygen level down there? "Can't we use the stairs? Or another way?"

"We can always apparate if you want to. You will need to hold on to my hand very tightly."

Hermione beamed and took his large hand. He beamed back, spun without warning and she nearly threw up her muffin. Everything went black, she was being squeezed in a giant fist, crushed from all directions, and _bang_ —her feet hit the floor again.

Getting into the Ministry of Magic involved torturous teleportation, which was… exactly the kind of nutty stuff that Hermione had come to expect from wizards. She put her hands over her chest and dragged fast breaths in. That was one of the most horrible things she had ever experienced, and she had ended up on the wrong end of a duffing incident more than once.

Now they were standing next to a massive fountain, in a high, long hall with dark wood floors and a life of its own. Cryptic golden symbols glided across the blue ceiling, crackles and sparks erupted from glided fireplaces against the side walls, bleary-eyed wizards and witches made loud popping noises as they appeared out of thin air. Still, the bored attitude everyone in the hall took toward teleporting was pretty weird—or at least it was until Hermione spotted people spinning out of the fireplaces. So _this_ was the floo. If you can walk through fire, she figured, you probably take most things in stride.

Like the gigantic golden statues in the fountain pool. A handsome wizard standing next to a beautiful witch, both holding up magical wands, a centaur about to release an arrow from a bow, a creature that looked like a fat, grumpy elf and an actual elf wearing a toga.

"What _are_ they?"

"A centaur, a goblin, and an elf. The old races."

"Why don't they have wands?"

"The law forbids it, and they do have their own wandless magic anyway."

Hermione nodded. More interestingly, she noticed silver and bronze coins glinting from the bottom of the water. A small smudged sign beside read:

 _All proceeds from the Fountain of Magical Brethren will be given to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries_

Just as she was wondering whether someone would catch you if you stuck your hand in the water and pocketed some change, her father walked away so quickly she almost had to run to keep up with him. He looked over and pulled her by the hand. They walked through golden gates to a smaller hall, then entered a lift with a wizard wearing plum-coloured robes with an elaborately worked silver _W_ on the chest. He was reading an extremely long piece of parchment that was trailing on the floor and didn't pay them any attention.

Hermione was trying to read over his shoulder when a cool, female voice announced,

"Level Five, Department of International Magical Cooperation, incorporating the International Magical Trading Standards Body, the International Magical Office of Law and the International Confederation of Wizards, British Seats."

"Come," her father beckoned her along when the lift doors opened. "International Cooperation," he said as Hermione fell into step beside him in the long aisle. She noted glossy wooden doors every now and then, presumably leading to offices. "Here, British wizards work together with foreign wizards, to organize big events for instance, or create regulations, or even solve legal issues—you know, treaties, fugitives… International politics can be turbulent, so it's quite the challenge," he went on, strolling about, nodding at a man he recognized as he moved. "See the door over there? That's a debating chamber for the Confederation of Wizards. Which I am part of, by the way. Our primary directive is to ensure the survival of wizardkind. Keep the order with the muggles. Protect our kind. Ensure the peace. Now, that does sound impressive, doesn't it?"

Hermione squinted her eyes. "Really impressive. But why are you telling me this?" He was so peculiar. Nan never acted this way.

He stopped short and turned, his head bent with an eyebrow raised. "Why wouldn't I be? There is such a thing as a father's duty, or did muggles throw duty away, too?" he said contemptuously. "That's the least I can do for my precious daughter. And it's your duty to learn, dear. Even if you don't want to." Before Hermione could object, he went on walking. "We often have to do things we don't want to. It is a part of being responsible, Hermione."

 _Precious daughter_ , she mouthed silently, shaking her head in bewilderment.

They turned a corner, walked through a pair of heavy oak doors, and threaded their way to a partly opened door. A stern-faced, important-looking older man wearing russet robes was standing there, visually examining them.

"Crouch, how do you do?"

"Mr Bourbon. I didn't realise you were in town. Here on business?"

Crouch had short greyish hair with a neat parting and a silly toothbrush moustache, and a serious, clipped voice. Crouch was _exactly_ the kind of man Hermione expected to find dwelling in the offices of the Ministry of Magic.

"I did have some urgent business to attend to. But it is taken care of now. May we use your fire to floo home? I'd apparate, but well… I just don't fancy splinching myself."

"Of course but who…" The wizard trailed off. His stare had darted from Hermione's clothes to her hair and now he was studying her face. Intently. Then he turned back to her father. But while he had been looking at her with speculation, he looked at her father with something like… disgust? Contempt?

"Excuse _me_ ," Hermione bit out.

That got his attention. "Those are Bourbon eyes. You'd best not go gazing into anyone's or they'll spot you right off. Unless, of course," he added slowly, "that is what you want."

This did not make Hermione feel better about anything. Before she could even _think_ of an answer her father had put his hand on her shoulder. "Unless you wish to keep us trapped in this corridor all day," he said, voice strange and cold, "I suggest that you move away from the door and allow us to step forward."

"Of course," Crouch said curtly. He stepped aside to let them enter the office and briskly walked away.

Nathaniel walked past the tidy oak desk to the fireplace, picked up a beige pot, shoved his hand deep in for a moment before fishing out a fistful of glittering powder. "Come on here, dear. You'll be going first." He gave the flowerpot over and knelt to busy himself with the fireplace, his wand out. "Take some powder, will you," he instructed before waving his wand about and murmuring incantations over and over.

Hermione observed the black powder in her palm. She turned her hand this way and that way. Black shimmered into emerald and black again.

"That should do it," said her father as he stood back up. "Off you go. Elbows tucked in, eyes shut, you throw the powder in here, step into the fire and say clearly 'Bourbon Estate'."

"Bourbon Estate?"

" _Oui_. Go on, then."

"Wait!" Hermione's voice pitched higher in panic. "This—where does it lead?"

"To Bourges, of course. Home."

"Bo—I mean, are you sure? God, I wouldn't want to impose."

Her father looked at her with wonder. "It is your _home_! You would never be an imposition. Anyhow, you could live in the chateau for weeks without anyone even noticing your presence." He gently pushed her forward. "Go, now."

Hermione took a fortifying breath, clamped her eyes shut and threw the powder. " _Bourbon Estate!_ "

It turned out that Hermione hated flooing, but she didn't hate it as much as she hated apparating, so there was that, at least. The fireplace took her to another stone-like fireplace, only this one was so big five people could easily fit in there. The green fire whipped again and when it died her father was standing next to her, almost carelessly, like he used enchanted fireplaces everyday. He smiled down at her, and stepped out, saying, "Welcome home! Welcome back, my dear."

Hermione took his hand and followed him to see where they had landed, exactly. Which was posher than anything she'd ever expected.

They stood in a vast sort of living-room with silky divans, red velvet-upholstered armchairs and low glass tables. Some thirty people could fit easily in the seats, and a hundred more could stand along the red walls. Four floor-to-ceiling windows, hung with heavy gold curtains, gave a view over gardens so green and orderly they cut a straight line against the blue-grey morning sky.

Two marble statues stood on pedestals like guards on either side of the arched white doorway. The first statue was a serious-faced huntress wearing a short tunic, knee-length boots and a bow. The other was a beautiful woman wrapped in gauzy cloth and flowers and sporting a coquettish smile and _moving_. She was brushing her fingers through her long hair, and waved at Hermione when she caught her looking. The huntress gave a faintly contemptuous look, and as if in answer, the other statue rolled her eyes. With a shrewd glance in Hermione's direction, she mimicked the huntress' soldierlike military pose and stood at attention, adding an extra measure of gravity by lifting her hand, bending her elbow and snapping off a salute. Then she doubled over in silent laughter, pounding the wall with one white fist. Without a word, the huntress fitted an arrow on her bowstring and aimed at her.

Hermione slapped herself.

Both the huntress and her father looked at her with some concern. "Is there a problem?" Before she could answer, there was a small crashing sound. "That'll be an owl," he said carelessly, and went to open the window. "Or a horse, perhaps. We have a newborn foal… Truly adorable, he's learning to fly..."

Hermione had so many questions. A flash of light caught her attention out of the corner of her eye and she looked down. Glittering gold veins appeared and disappeared like lightning strikes across the white marble floor.

She was bending to inspect it just as Nathaniel sat in an armchair with the newspaper. He gave her curious looks. "I keep forgetting how little you know. I suppose it must all seem very odd to you. This is a far cry from a muggle household."

Hermione shrugged, as if she visited magical chateaux everyday.

"You must be tired, after our journey and such an exciting week, _non?_ Would you like a cold drink, perhaps? Or some sleep?"

"I could use a nap, um. Please."

"Of course. I'll show you to your rooms and call a maid."

A maid. Hermione nodded, blank-faced. Nathaniel Bourbon wasn't just rich, he was in that echelon of crazy rich she couldn't imagine. The people living there probably never looked at a price tag. She needed to sit. There was too much to take in at once, too much gold, too much red. She was making her way to an armchair, when the funniest feeling came to her. Her head jerked around, turning from side to side, as if searching for something to warn her of an attack. Her fingers twitched involuntarily.

There was _something_.

The nervous feeling tingled through her like electrical sparks on the way to the ground, gathering in her toes as if to pull her forward just like a magnet. She started toward the arched doorway, where she could see a glimpse of what looked like another living-room. "Hermione? Where are you going?" She heard her father's concerned voice but she couldn't stop walking even if she tried. Her head had become giddy, her stomach nauseous. She walked through the archway, her eyes met startled golden ones and light faded into blackness as she collapsed.

. . .

Hermione half-opened her eyes, and realized she'd _passed out_. She was flabbergasted.

"You're awake. Shall I help you?"

Slowly, she shook her head and sat up. She was in an unfamiliar bedroom, in a cozy bed smelling vaguely of fresh laundry and mint leaves. The mattress was so plush, it felt like being swallowed by a cloud.

Nathaniel, her father, was sitting next to the bed, and he looked dead worried. "How do you feel? Goodness, you gave me such a fright," he said, and Hermione was wrapped in a warm blanket of caring. "The maid nearly fainted too when she saw both of you on the floor! I have an inkling as to why but perhaps I should call a healer—"

 _Both of you?_

Sharply, Hermione turned her head from side to side. And then she saw it.

A hand, resting on the bed.

She moved her eyes up, incredulously. The hand belonged to a tanned arm. Which belonged to a boy about her age. Who was lounging in a white armchair on her other side, his fingers drumming impatiently. He had curly dark blond hair in a ponytail, a maniacal expression, and checkered pyjamas. He lifted his eyes, the same eyes as hers, Bourbon eyes, the wizard at the Ministry had called them. Light-lashed on him, dark-lashed on her, but Bourbon eyes all the same.

Alright. _Who_ was that?

The boy jutted his chin out. "I am Lucas," he said, as if he'd read her thoughts. "Lucas Bourbon."

Hermione's mind went blank, then exploded with questions. So she was right? A relative? Her eyes flicked madly from the pretty, sullen boy besides her… to her thirty-four-year-old blond father… and then back again to the boy.

Her father seemed amused. "She doesn't seem really happy to meet you, Lucas. It is the haircut, I think."

Lucas let out a string of what sounded like angry French cussing.

"Enough of that. Do not raise your voice to me. It's vulgar. And do sit up straight in that chair."

They started bickering in French, and Hermione found herself eying the boy more closely. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, jiggling one free dragon-slipper-clad foot. Unruly locks of hair fell in his eyes as he spoke energetically. He was tanned like he'd spent the whole summer playing outdoors. He looked like Nathaniel. He looked like _her_.

There had to be a logical explanation.

"Who is this? And we _passed out? Together_?"

Her father gave her a meaningful look. "Magic twins' bond, my dear. I told you, no? My bad. Well, you are twins, bonded since birth, and when you—quite literally—ran into each other, it just sort of, ah," he made a helpless explosive motion with his hands, "accidental magic."

Hermione nodded. She didn't stop nodding. She was pretty sure if she stopped nodding, common sense would kick in, and she'd scream her head off. Twins. She had a twin brother.

 _She was someone's twin._

"We don't look like twins," she heard Lucas mutter. He didn't look thrilled to meet her.

"You're fraternal." Her father stood. "You need to rest. No more questions, no getting up, and certainly no jumping out of the windows—I'm talking to you, son. We'll sort out what's need to be done later." He looked at the pair of them and beamed—a warm, genuine smile that reached his brown eyes, making them crinkle at the corners. "I'll leave now, children. I'm sure you have so much to tell each other."

The white double-doors closed behind him with a soft _thud_.

Immediately Hermione's eyes were drawn to Lucas, who was fidgeting madly. He swung himself off his chair as though he couldn't sit still. Then he paced up and down, only adding another piece of chaos to the bedroom. It was amazing in white and sky-blue tones—but it was a _mess_. As if someone had placed sticks of dynamite in drawers and blew them open, glossy magazines and clothes sprawled dead on the floor, others lay wounded midway, clinging to the delicate white furniture. No one was talking yet the place reverberated with a cacophony of magical sounds. Fiery phoenixes soared over the blue walls and painted clouds with screeches of joy; near the paper-swamped desk paintbrushes fluttered and stirred in their pots; wizards all wearing navy robes and riding broomsticks zoomed in and out of posters. And unless Hermione's ears were deceiving her, something was hammering against the wardrobe door.

"Is this your room?"

Lucas startled so bad, he nearly tripped over a book. " _Oui_ —I mean, yes. Why?"

"I think there's somebody in your closet."

His answer was a magazine sent flying toward the door and an angry shout in French. The door rattled one last time and the pounding stopped. Lucas went back to his pacing.

Hermione stared at him until she couldn't take it anymore. She pushed back the bedcovers and sat up on her knees. "So, we're kind of twins." She laughed nervously when he turned to her. "Odd, isn't it? I mean, we're practically strangers. I was adopted, did you know? Nobody where I lived was magic at all. Oh, wait, maybe I should—to make it official—" She stuck out her hand. "Nice to meet you."

Lucas shook it, but then looked as if he wanted to swim in a vat of hand sanitizer. "Yes, very strange," he said loftily. "Father is telling me your name is Hermione?"

He pronounced it _'Er-mee-on._

"I know I'm supposed to be called Louise but I'd rather keep my own name. Hermione is Greek anyway so I don't think it makes that much difference. Since my middle name is Sirona and all—old French goddess, isn't she? I looked it up. And by the way, that's how you pronounce it, _Her-my-own-ee_." She beamed. "I bet you have a Celtic middle name too!"

He nodded cautiously, as if placating a lunatic. "Yes. Virotutis. It's Gaulish."

"Really? That's another name for the Greek god Apollo—who's Hermes's brother. Now that's a funny coincidence. Oh! I forgot to ask. It's only the two of us, right? I mean, if we have another sibling named Zeus, well, I would like to know—"

"Don't be ridiculous," he cut her off tartly, "there is no one else."

Hermione's smile slipped. "Well, I don't really know anything about this place. Mind you, I didn't even know you people existed."

He shrugged, as though to say, _What do I care?_ then started pacing again.

It was grating on her nerves.

"Do you have to pee or something?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Do you have to take a piss?"

Lucas regarded her, baffled. "Take...?"

"Take a piss. Pee-pee. Make water."

Now he looked repulsed. But at least he was paying her attention. "I like to pace when I'm thinking," he snapped.

"All you're going to do is wear out the floor if you keep that up. How come you speak English so well?"

"Almost everyone I know speaks English."

"Oh. Do you speak a lot of languages?"

"Not that many. French obviously, English, Spanish, German, and some Italian, though that involves guesswork."

"You… think that's not many?"

"All those languages are spoken around us daily. To not know them would be discourteous." He puffed out his cheeks and scowled. "That's what Father claims, anyway. He seems to think I need to learn Latin and classical Greek too. Can't think why."

Hermione felt more stupid by the minute, something she wasn't used to. She tried to quell her jealousy best she could. "You're so lucky. I don't know any foreign languages. Or spells, for that matter, I don't know anything about the wizard world. But um, our father said there were tons of books here, so..."

Lucas was eying her with some fascination. "You are not really serious, yes?"

"Why would I lie?"

He went to stand in front of her, hands balled into fists at his sides, shoulders bunched up. "Because you are a _fraud_ ," he said scathingly. "You're certainly not my sister. I'm not sure you're a witch, even. Why are you here, muggle? What do you want from us? Money?"

Hermione felt such a surge of indignation, two embroidered pillows flew and arced in the air. Direct hit. Struck his infuriating face before falling at his feet.

"How is that for a muggle?"

"Okay. So you're a witch. Congratulations." Lucas's tone was derisive, but she could see an insecure flash in his eyes. He looked down at the pillows, hair falling over his face. Hermione had a pang of guilt, and was about to apologize when he yawned elaborately, stretching his arms above his head, and muttering, "This is so stupid. I don't need this."

She felt like slapping him. But someone had to act mature here, her conscience jabbed at her. He was _family_. Her _twin_. "Honestly... You can drop the act." She tried to sound sisterly. "Why wouldn't you want a sibling? It's so lonely being an only child. Oh, it's wonderful we can be a family again. It'll be like a movie, right? Or a book!"

"I don't think any of this is wonderful," Lucas said, surveying her jeans, "I think you're freaky. And your haircut's atrocious."

She glared at him furiously. "You're a rubbish brother!"

"I'm not your brother!" he shot back.

"Are too!"

"I can't be!"

"Why the hell not?"

"Because it would be too good to be true!" Lucas shut his mouth and winced, as if he couldn't believe what he'd just said. "I mean to say, we all know that things like that don't happen in real life," he said with a shrug. "Miracles and goodness just don't happen out of nowhere. Has to be fake."

"That's rich coming from a wizard," said Hermione heatedly. "And there have been stranger things in history. Crazier things, even. Don't you read? You're French, aren't you, what about Joan of Arc? She heard these angels' voices telling her to go fight for her country, and she went, and no one in the army told her it was preposterous, right? No one said, 'You know what, Joan, that's rubbish.' They went with it, and she made it! Because that's what you do sometimes. Life is unpredictable! No one knows what's going to happen next!"

She felt quite stirred up after this tirade, but Lucas was staring at her as though she was an imbecile.

"Joan of Arc," he said, "was executed."

Hermione glared at him resentfully. Some people were just so negative.

"And what angels are you talking about?" he went on disparagingly. "It was a seer who made the prophecy about Joan."

"A what?"

"A seer, someone who can see into the future. Don't you know anything?"

He sounded so pitying, she felt a bit piqued. "Well I don't think they teach us the same things in muggle schools!"

"How would I know what they teach muggles?" Lucas appeared offended at the very idea. "I'm busy enough with my tutor and preparatory school."

Hermione's irritation faded. "So you got the letter too?" she asked, grudgingly curious. "The one from the magical school."

"Of course I got it! And Father's bought me all the books and a telescope and a new cauldron already… There's no way I'm not bringing my broom, though. I heard the school brooms start vibrating if you fly too fast, can you imagine?"

"You know how to fly on a broom?"

Lucas made a sound halfway between a sigh and a snort. " _Pfuit!_ What do you take me for? Of _course_ I know."

"And do you have a wand yet? It was on the list—"

He produced a wand from his pocket. "Beautiful, isn't it? Ebony wood and dragon heartstring. I've had it for a long time, actually."

Even Hermione, who knew nothing about wands, thought it was beautiful. Sleek and shiny, made of deep black wood, it had carved swirls running along its length and a twisted, dark handle. She stared enviously as Lucas twirled it between his fingers and it emitted a number of green and gold sparks.

"You don't realize your luck. You must have tried dozens of spells already—you'll have a good head start, while I'll be miles behind everyone else at Hogwarts."

"Oh, _come on_ ," he replied, grinning a little. "Lots of wizards and witches come from the muds and they have never even heard of magic until they go to school. And what is that nonsense about Hogwarts, anyway? We go to Beauxbatons."

"So now there's a _we_? Funny that. I thought I was a lying muggle."

Lucas blinked thrice and _literally_ jumped back away from her. He looked furious with himself, then with her. "You're not," he shouted. "You can go to Hogwarts for all I care."

Oh, so he didn't want to be her twin, Hermione thought coolly. Well, too bad. He was. She noticed the silvery chain around his neck and reached under her shirt, pulling out her own locket. He narrowed his eyes. "Nothing special," she said, clicking it open, "just something I've had since I was a baby. See inside? There's a picture of my parents and—oh, a name. Bourbon. Now, where have I heard that name before?"

Lucas's hand flew under his pyjama shirt and he gaped at her. Then his expression grew hard. "You have some nerve. Just go back where you came from," he said, eyes flashing, then he turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

**_4_**

Lucas was going to bolt out of this madhouse, run away to Mexico, and change his name to Juan. Then he wouldn't have to go on being Lucas Bourbon, living his increasingly stupid life.

His father'd brought a punk home. His father, Lord Nathaniel Bourbon, a perfectly respectable wizard, had brought a punk home and called her his _daughter_. He'd found her in London, of all places. Like it was normal. Like they weren't French. Like British people weren't those hermetical, backward weirdoes who sulked in their corner and were completely out of touch with everything that went on in the outside real world. And as if _that_ wasn't enough, she came from the muds.

Which sadly, sadly said it all.

A lying British muggleborn who was impersonating his dead highborn twin sister. This fiasco had barely begun and already Lucas was wishing he'd died too. He usually made it at least a week into the whole imposter-thing before the prayers for death started. There had been a few others who had tried to worm their way into his family and vaults, but his father had never let them made it past the front-door before, so Lucas had to wonder—had he gone insane?

At least Lucas's godmother was levelheaded. " _I'll swing by_ ," Ariel's one-line letter announced as if it were no big deal.

And his best friend wasn't buying it. "Your _dead_ sister? Mate, you cannot be serious, she's a mudblood. How is your father going to introduce her without embarrassing himself?"

Some deep part of Lucas wanted to snap, "Stop being a jerk!" But the bigger part of him was dying to grab Blaise by the shoulders and give him an _oh-Gods-I-know!_ shake, because that was only the hard truth.

So, yeah. Hermione the muggle freak. There was one single reason why Lucas hadn't throttled her yet: she looked at his father and had stars in her eyes. Blindsided. Head over heels. Worryingly, sometimes. Especially when she was following him everywhere he went, running into him whenever he stopped, always shyly, always with the big brown eyes and the adoring expression.

Lucas threw himself onto his bed. Grabbed his palette of oils and a white canvas. When the emotion in his heart and the image in his mind were perfectly aligned, he went to work. Swirls of crimson. Bold slashes of indigo. He prodded the canvas with his wand, getting the paint to move, feeling himself relax.

There was a knock, and the double doors swung open. "Good morning," the imposter said.

Lucas stared. Something about the way she tossed her head, slightly defiantly, right before she came in, gave him a flicker of déjà vu. And in that instant, he got it.

She honestly did look like him.

"I made an apple pie," Hermione brazened through the awkward silence. "Do you want some?"

"No."

She wasn't deterred. Her eyes roamed to his canvas. "Oh, you're painting. I love how it just… flickers. But how come you've made the sky red?"

"I was in a red mood."

Hermione nodded slowly. "Look, I know that must be odd, me moving in all of a sudden, and the twin thing, and Na—Dad saying you wouldn't go to prep school this year since I'm here. And I'm sorry." A pause. "I was just speaking with the butler, getting to know the chateau. He says he's very happy about the whole thing. Claire and Pauline too—the maids. I like them. And I'm getting my wand this week!"

She seemed so eager, it was creepy. Obviously Lucas had expected an impersonator of a dead baby to be creepy, just not creepy like _that_.

"I'll go now," Hermione said. And then she waited.

She was always doing that, announcing simple actions before she did them: _I'll go now. I'm getting a sandwich. I'm taking a shower. I'm going to read a book. I'm going to sleep._

The weirdest thing, she didn't say it like she was giving them warning, like she was informing them. Instead she said it expectantly, uncertainly, like she was waiting for somebody to say no. No, you can't go. You don't need a sandwich. You don't get to shower. You don't need any of that.

For some reason, that made Lucas angry. "Yes," he retorted. "Do get out."

Hermione smiled tightly and closed the doors.

And all Lucas could think was, _at least soon I'll be at Beauxbatons and away from this circus._ The more he thought about running away, the more he liked the sound of it. He crossed to his wardrobe and crammed a set of robes, underwear, pyjamas and magazines into a duffel-bag and checked the time. Ten o'clock. There shouldn't be anyone near his room but still, he was careful all the way to the east wing, throwing glances over his shoulder as he tiptoed across polished marble floors through six arched doorways to the seventh, and into the red drawing-room. He put his finger to his lips and shushed the enchanted statues as he strode past them to the fireplace. Both stopped arguing long enough to see what he was up to.

Lucas reached out to grab some floo powder, then hesitated. Was he really going to sneak out without even leaving a note? There'd be hell to pay. His father rarely grounded him, and when it happened, Lucas was just lectured or sent to his room—which was weird because his grandfather used to punish his father by locking him in the chateau's dungeon. You'd think he would've turned stricter.

But if Lucas left home without asking for permission, he'd be in for the grounding of a lifetime, possibly in the dungeon. Angry with everything, he flung his bag down and moved around the room. He spotted the mail on a table and sifted through it. His father was on the boards of all the big charities and organizations and always had boring fundraisers to go to. These were mostly invitations, newspapers, scholarly publications…

Then there was Hermione's fan mail.

This month their family life had been the hottest story in every tabloid and gossip column. Journalists had a field day as they concocted screaming headlines like, " _Long Lost Heiress Found!_ " or _"Louise Bourbon Comes Back To Life!"_. French wizards had reacted in a bizarre fashion, owling congratulatory baskets of flowers and chocolates, letters of support, with the two odd howlers, one cursed letter, and a hippogriff plushie.

"Idiots," Lucas muttered as he tossed the letters aside, snagged his things from the floor and stomped to the fire.

. . .

As usual, the Delacour household was alive with activity when Lucas jumped out of the fireplace, music pouring out along the hallway. The wireless was a staple in their home, as sacred as the collection of silver-framed photos on the mantelpiece—baby pictures, a snap of the family at a park somewhere sunny, one of Mr Delacour in his Ministry robes, and Lucas's favourite, taken on the Delacours' wedding.

A brown-haired woman waved up at him from the photo and he grinned. His mother'd passed away when he was a baby, but he'd heard so many stories, saw so many pictures, that he felt he'd actually known her.

"Is it you, Fleur?" a breathy voice called over the music.

Lucas went to the living-room, where, dressed in a leotard, tights and leg-warmers, Apolline Delacour was doing aerobics to _Melissande Montfaucon's Morning Workout_. Following step for step right next to her was her daughter Gabrielle. She was five going on twenty-five, with hair so silvery and a vocabulary so sophisticated, it would often stop strangers in the street.

 _"Work those glutes, ladies!"_ Melissande sang out from the wireless.

"Lucas, sweetie. Spending the night, are you? Don't you have a kiss for me?"

While Lucas dutifully obliged, a yawning Camelius Delacour walked in the living-room, patting his daughter's blond bob and smiling sleepily.

"How's it going, Lucas? I see you're alone, why didn't bring that sister of yours? I'm dying to meet her, myself."

"Yes, where is Hermione, honey?" his wife chimed in. "Oooh, you must be so happy!"

Frightening how clueless old people could be. "She's busy at home. You will see her soon, anyway. Fleur's here for the holiday, isn't she?" Fleur Delacour was in her fourth year at Beauxbatons, basically an adult in Lucas's eyes, and the coolest girl he knew. She performed death-defying feats daily, like telling her parents to 'shut up' or 'calm down'.

"She's not home? Where'd she go?" said Camelius, perplexed. "Gabrielle, where's your sister?"

Not even in prep school yet, Gabrielle had already mastered the art of getting people in trouble. "She's at Lancelot's with her friends. She didn't clean her room."

"The Tesson boy? I don't trust that kid."

"You don't trust any boy who is friend with our daughter, honey," Apolline said matter-of-factly.

Camelius grumbled. "She's flying back to school tomorrow, you'd think she'd want to spend more time with us. I'm calling her." He smiled at Lucas as he walked past. "It's always great to have you over, son."

Lucas grinned back. Why did he always have such a good time when he was at the Delacours'? It wasn't like they had things he didn't have. They lived in a four-bedroom house, didn't have maids, and their idea of extravagance was a restaurant. And while his family lived in the countryside—no neighbours, no car noises, no polluted air—the Delacours lived in the city. Wizarding Paris, a maze of cobblestoned streets that jazzed up with colourful umbrellas on rainy days, trendy underground shopping alleys typically associated with wild nightlife, and tile-panelled passageways sheltered under glass roofs where people like the Delacours lived. Their passageway stretched alive with rowdy children playing, music and cigarette smoke drifting out of open windows, balconies groaning under the weight of potted plants and jars of herb mixes, and bothersome neighbours like that elderly potioneer who once turned bright orange because of an experiment gone wrong or that punk muggleborn with the mohawk and motorcycle.

Why would anyone live in such a noisy place? Still, every time Lucas spent the night, even if all he did was eat macaroons in the kitchen with Apolline or play loser games, he had such a great time. As expected today was fun. Mr Delacour's nephew came over. Lucas tackled him when he stepped out of the fireplace and together they rolled around, laughing.

Baptiste Delacour had been his friend since he ended up having the extraordinarily good luck to sit next to Lucas when they started prep school. He'd been such a loser—still was, really. Chubby with a bowl cut and a lisp. Lucas couldn't help harassing him in every way, and apparently Baptiste liked the harassment since he was always following him around. They spent the afternoon flipping through latest issues of _Seeker Weekly_ in the Delacours' living-room. Camelius plopped down on the sofa with a glass of Perrier.

"What do you kids do these days besides reading books?"

"Magazines, Mr Delacour," Lucas corrected. Big difference. "We've been busy following the World Cup. Final game next week!"

"When _I_ was growing up we didn't stay home, we'd be ice-skating outside all winter. The Lutetia Park downtown would be jam-packed with people, the music loud. When's the last time you played outside?"

"This summer at mine, Mr Delacour."

"Maybe you boys should be playing outside a bit more."

Baptiste whined, "It's bad enough we've got prep school on Mondays and Thursdays. It's too cold to be out, Uncle."

"Too cold? If it was up to me I'd make you fly your brooms to the park. Too cold… I'll give you too cold."

Camelius Delacour was always "giving" his nephew Baptiste things. _I'll give you sorry._ _I'll give you not hungry_. How can you give him 'not hungry'? Lucas once asked him. He was not amused.

"It's fresh air out there!" he continued. "Your dad would say the same thing, Baptiste. Lucas, yours too. You children don't know what you're missing."

As the two boys mimicked exaggerated shivers, Fleur came in, annoyed. She said Lucas's father had called the fireplace, and he'd been trying to get through for hours, only she was talking to her friend so he kept getting a busy signal. "Didn't you tell him you were sleeping over? He's angry and says he wants you to floo home immediately. What did you do again?"

Lucas must have looked like he was going to throw up, because Fleur smoothly added, " _Bah_ , don't worry about it. I'll call him back to say you already went to bed."

"What's all this about?" Camelius cut in. "You really did get permission from your father to stay over, didn't you?"

Lucas was saved from answering by Gabrielle bursting into the living-room. She had decided that "pyjamas on" was a game, and her mother chased her around for ages before she could get hold of her.

While Camelius lectured his daughter about listening to the grownups, Lucas worried about what _his_ father would do to him when he went home.

. . .

Bourges was the best thing to happen to Hermione since magic.

That was saying a lot, since magic was the best thing to ever happen to Hermione. But Bourges had _this kitchen._

Glass cabinets above black granite countertops. Black cauldrons hung from an iron rack over a marble-topped island. Massive stainless sinks, shining butcher block counters, steel restaurant stoves. Everything was _sleek_. Everything was _first-class._ The walk-in pantry was a mystery, rows of glass shelves overflowing with food and labeled mason jars filled with all sorts of oddities—powdered spices, dried herbs, essential oils, quartz pebbles in all shades, leaves soaking in liquids, giant eggs and dried insects and bloody animal organs and small bones...

Hermione steered clear of those. She was so busy poking into a medieval-looking ice-box that she barely noticed somebody coming in. Until she almost bumped into the chef, who'd walked out of the pantry. A small man decked out in white slacks, white apron, chief's hat and red scarf around his neck—and on the verge of tears.

"Mademoiselle," he said tragically, holding onto an empty bag of _Self-Charmed Flour._ "Zere is no more bread."

"That's all right," said Hermione, showing him the waffles she'd found on the center island. "Don't mind me, I'm just making myself a little breakfast." She returned to inspecting the magical fridge. Grabbed some cold cuts, pickle slices, two waffles which she smushed into a sandwich.

And turned around to find the cook struck dumb in horror. "You… you cannot eat zat," he whispered, obviously appalled.

"You're right, I need cheese." She stuck her head back in the fridge before turning back to her sandwich—only to find that it wasn't there anymore.

Maybe because it had been _stolen._

"It's mine!" Hermione told the chef, who was holding it firmly against his chest with a determined look. "If you want one just ask!"

"What is zat?" he demanded, pointing at her hands.

Hermione held up the square of little slices and pointed at the bold-faced label, _'American Processed Cheese'._

The chef was baffled. Then angered. " _Oh la la_ , Master Lucas again. I say to him I will make him real cheese but he does not listen. He buys zis… thing from the city." He was emphatic. "Lord Bourbon, 'ee would never forgive me—you cannot eat zees filth! _C'est une aberration!_ "

"You haven't even tried it! Anyway, there's nothing else—"

"Nossing?" The chef gestured around at the rows of black cabinets and the pantry and the icebox. "Zere is everything! You will not eat that!"

"Pâté. Frog legs. Bloody caviar."

The little chef drew himself up. "You lived with the crazy in England," he accused. "Caviar is food. But _zat_ ees not food. Zat ees not even—"

Hermione snatched the sandwich back. It was smushed, but it was okay. She took a defiant bite.

"Please." He looked desperate. "I beg of you, Mademoiselle. Do not eat zat. I weel make you something better."

"Oh, honestly. What?"

"Anything! Do you like _les oeufs?_ I weel make _une omelette!_ Such an omelet I weel make for you!" He waved the hand with the despised cheese in it. "As has nevair been seen. It shall be an omelet of the gods!"

Ten minutes later, Hermione sat down and took a bite of omelet. Her eyes bugged out.

"It is good, no?" The chef said loftily. "Olive oil, tabasco, chives, onions, pepper—zust a touch, you understand… Next time, you ask me for food."

Hermione patted her omelet-full belly as she stepped out of the kitchen in the hallway. The stretchy waistband came in handy. Her new wardrobe was a marvel—a whole new fancy wardrobe, thanks to her father. She swayed back and forth, the circle skirt swooshing through the air as she walked up the curved blue-carpeted staircase leading to the hall.

Once up, Hermione tiptoed to the center and glanced around. The floors were beige marble streaked with bronze veins and matched the furniture siding the sweeping staircase—a tan brocade sofa paired with wingback chairs and a low walnut table. To the sides of the foyer were archways supported by marble columns that opened to a bloody _ballroom_ on the left and a cushy _library_ on the right. A _library_. Which was _ridiculous_ , much like the rest of the house. All warm mahogany wood and velvet, squishy chairs and soft light and books on books. There was even a ladder going up to a sort of second floor—second tier? Whatever, it was amazing.

A maid appeared, noticed Hermione standing there, but didn't react except to dip a curtsy and hurry away.

 _Training,_ Hermione thought. _Expensive training._ Her new home was the kind of place that came with trained help, a three-storey mansion of beige-and-peach stone with two wings jutting forth in an u-shape and a courtyard nestled between them. The east wing was used for meals and socializing, with its seven living-rooms. But the west wing was domestic—bedrooms with their own dressing-rooms, bathrooms and balconies, and the master's suite at the far end. And all of this was on the first floor. Hermione hadn't been to the upper floors yet, but the butler'd told her there were other rooms. And others.

She made her way up to her own bedroom. It was terribly fancy, all decorated in off-whites and deep reds, with a four-poster bed and a red velvet canopy above it, a thick beige rug, cream walls setting off the polished cherry-red floor and matching cherry doors leading to the dressing-room and bathroom. Everything looked so expensive it made you nervous to touch it.

Hermione went to sit on the comfy red-and-cream striped armchair. Outside, rays of sun slanted across the green gardens and illuminated the temple in the middle of the lake. Hazy clouds sailed across the sky, and abruptly they parted to reveal wings beating the air in powerful strokes as an abraxan horse flew over to hover just outside the glass. Behind him, two more winged horses zipped free in the sky, tossing their heads and neighing in the distance.

Hermione didn't know if it was the same in every wizarding household, but everything was _insane_ in Bourges. Wizard-bred animals outdoors. Fine art works that were alive, cheeky goddesses statues and talking mirrors and paintings of ancestors that kept everyone in the loop of their feelings on things.

Though the most unusual about Bourges was definitely the people. The help fussed over Hermione, straightened her robes and smoothed her hair; the chef sent up nutritious meals, and her father—he _doted_ on her. He spoiled her, listened to her, entertained her, and routinely surprised her by kissing her head or buying her books—which was just as well, since she had nothing but free time on her hands now.

Hermione tried to remember the last time she had nothing to do in her nan's house. She wasn't sure she could. She'd never had nothing to do. She stared at the clouds marring the cornflower sky, relishing her situation. No one had any hold over her. No one could call her up and demand her presence.

This was _her_ home.

Smiling hugely, she stood, picked two books from her desk— _Hogwarts: A History_ and _999 French Verbs_ —and went to check if her father was back from his morning ride.

As she walked past Lucas's bedroom, she heard a loud thumping sound. She frowned, remembering she hadn't seen her surly brother at lunch or dinner yesterday.

The pounding came again.

Hermione knocked. "Lucas? Alright?"

No answer came, and she opened the doors to snoop. The room was empty. She listened. The thumping was coming from one of the two white doors.

Hermione pushed it open and walked in—or tried to, before finding herself on the floor. She got up, only to have the same thing happen, this time a heavy body latching on top of her. A scream escaped as she punched and struggled against the attacker. Finally she landed a well-aimed kick that sent the black shadow flying.

Hermione jumped to her feet, gasping, eyes wide.

Two things registered. First, she was in a dressing-room. Second, her attacker was a cloak. A black cloak trimmed with fur, lying horizontally, hovering a few inches off the ground where she'd kicked it.

She blinked as the cloak stood back up and shook itself, then marched toward her. Angrily. "You—stop it! Leave me alone!"

The cloak froze in place, then drooped in a heap on the floor.

Hermione threw it a last suspicious glance before walking deeper in the dressing-room—what a room it was. There was a black leather couch with a tufted ottoman, and where there weren't clothes, there were mirrors. The shelves facing her lined with rows of boots, loafers, moccasins, styles she'd never seen before. The walls were dedicated to hanging racks with different clothing styles. Everything was colour coordinated and Lucas owned more coats, more robes, more shirts than she'd ever seen. Ties and bowties, scarves, gloves, and hats. Cloaks. Long, short, heavy and fur-trimmed, made of starched cotton or shiny silk, subdued dark tones or bright colours, plain or patterned with moving creatures…

Hermione was stunned. A loud, echoing _crack_ broke the silence like a gunshot and she held up her fists, ready for Round Two with the cloak. And indeed something had materialized out of thin air behind her—but it wasn't an item of clothing this time.

Hermione didn't know _what_ it was. Blue-skinned, the creature resembled an elf, and was naked except for a large white apron. Its head was covered by a little maid cap under which protruded bat-like ears.

"You—who are you?"

Big violet eyes looked up with adoration.

"What's with all the ruckus?" said an exasperated voice. "Some of us are trying to paint."

Lucas glowered at them both from the doorway.

Hermione opened her mouth to explain but the creature started jabbering away in high-pitched, excited French.

Lucas listened boredly, nodded, replied something, then there was another cracking noise as the elf disappeared. "Did you need anything?" he asked Hermione.

She told him about the cloak, and he gave this long sigh before walking over to the wardrobe.

"This… little person," Hermione said, following suit. "Was that one of your friends?"

Lucas looked at her as if she were insane. "Lolly is a house-elf," he said plainly, and returned to what he was doing, trying to fold the fur cloak which was wriggling under his hands. "It was made from a flying carpet," he explained, seeing the direction of Hermione's stare, "and tends to get temperamental when I don't wear it in a long time—stop _moving!_ "

The cloak shook furiously and spurted out of his hands, but he jumped on top of it.

"Do you need help?"

"No," Lucas snapped, as the bucking-bronco ride he was being treated to careened him into the leather couch.

"Fine," said Hermione dubiously. "So, what's a house-elf?"

"Melusine, you've been living here for two weeks. How can you be so ignorant?"

Hermione said nothing, watching as Lucas pulled open a drawer of overflowing hair accessories and dug around until he found an elastic band. He tried to strap the cloak down, but somehow the thing seemed to know that, and went skittering out the door in the bedroom, jouncing Lucas as savagely as it could manage in the process.

"What's a house-elf?" Hermione persisted. "That creature came out of nowhere."

"House-elves serve wizards, like maids if you want, they clean, cook, run errands... That one's named Lolly."

"I see," she said slowly. "By the way, where were you yesterday?"

"At the Delacours'."

Hermione sat in an armchair, reassured that Lucas wasn't going to bite her head off for anything. He seemed in a much more agreeable mood today than on any of the other occasions they had talked. Maybe because he was still struggling to get the hairband looped around the wild cloak, which was trying to throw him off its back.

"Are they wizards too?"

"Of course they are. Old family, though Apolline Delacour is half-veela. Her husband works at the Ministry. Their nephew's my friend—Baptiste."

"D'you have lots of friends?" Hermione asked as she looked around, imagining what it must have been like growing up here. Seemed lonely to her.

"There's Yazid Beaumont. I know him because Lord Beaumont went to school with Father, and now they're business associates. We go to prep school together, along with Baptiste. But I don't see them that much. I've got this other friend, Blaise—him, I see all the time."

The cloak rode by the desk and Lucas snagged several volumes, and sure enough, the cloak's antics slowed down. He shoved the books underneath him and grabbed two more. The cloak slowly started to settle toward the floor and Hermione thought he had it, but then it gave a huge heave and threw both the books and Lucas off.

The cloak flounced away, fur swinging smugly.

"Let me help you," Hermione offered, starting to rise, but Lucas waved her off.

"No, really. I'm fine." He stalked toward the cloak, honey-brown eyes flashing. "We were saying?"

The cloak suddenly swept through his legs, knocking him to the floor again. Lucas rubbed the back of his head, muttering to himself in French.

Hermione smothered a laugh. "You were talking about your friends… Is that all?"

"All? I can't be friends with just anybody." Lucas made an abrupt leap and threw himself on top of the cloak. Turning the thing upside down, he lashed it to the bedpost. By the time he was done, it was trussed up in four hair ties, the sheet and several items from his wardrobe. "There! Now try to move, you freak."

One of the cloak's sleeves waved about, giving the distinct impression that it was flipping him off.

"You can stay like that until you rot," Lucas told it. He dropped into the other wingback chair, and looked at Hermione. "Did you need anything else?"

Before she could answer, footsteps echoed down the corridor and a minute later their father towered in the doorway, blond hair sweaty, black breeches tucked in polished boots, a helmet under his arm. He noticed Lucas and his expression darkened. "Lucas! What in heaven's name were you thinking? Taking off like that without even a note, do you have any idea how worried I was?"

Lucas's eyes darted about like a cornered animal.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself? And it had better be good, son. Please explain what would make you go off, without any warning or planning. Have I not drilled into your head all the things that could happen to you?"

"I... Err, that is to say—"

"It's my fault," Hermione blurted out before she could think twice about it. "He told me he'll be sleeping over at the, uh, the Delacours' but I completely forgot to tell you. Sorry."

Lucas had a _what-the-hell_ expression on his face but her father's eyes softened fractionally. He pushed a sweaty lock of hair off his forehead, sighing. "You're lucky this time," he said, clapping a hand on Lucas's shoulder and pulling him into a one-armed hug. "But don't do that again."

"You smell like horses," Lucas muttered, but he hugged him back.

"Hazards of horse-riding," their father replied dryly. He glanced over at Hermione. "Do you want to get your wand this afternoon, dear? We could go up to town for a few days. And buy you some new books, if you would like them."

"That would be great. I'd really, really love to! Thank you!"

"Why don't you think about what you'd like to read and come up with a list? And clothes, too. We'll need to have you fitted for riding gear. There is no life in the countryside if you cannot ride. We shall leave after lunch, then."

"About lunch," Lucas jumped in, "Yazid's invited me over, so I'll—"

"No, I think not," his father answered coldly. "But if you don't care about spending time with your family, Lucas Virotutis, you can go and have lunch at McDonald's with the rest of the commoners."

And on that note, he strode out.


	5. Chapter 5

**_5_**

Hermione's first two months in France were brilliant. She missed London, a bit, but her father had bought her _Hogwarts, A History_ and there was Rose, who was British. Right now, Rose—Rosie, she insisted—was in the blue drawing-room, casting some cleaning charm over porcelain figures kept in a glass-fronted cabinet. It was the sixth of a suite of seven drawing-rooms with an arched hallway that ran continuously through each room, all decorated in a monochromatic theme of pale grey-blue brocade repeated in the upholstered armchairs and gilt-framed mirrors. Rosie was a maid.

Hermione's family maintained an awful lot of these live-in employees—a chef, a butler, house-elves, three maids, a gardener, a stable-boy, a handyman. Having "help" seemed old-fashioned and lazy, but looking at the size of the estate, Hermione understood. And her father was busy. Men like him didn't need to work for a living, yet his agenda was full—galas, parties, Ministry business, and whatever he did in his study which involved the sort of inscrutable financial transactions that populated the pages of _The Wall Street Journal._

People could make fun of the privileged all they wanted—really, it was Hermione's hobby—but they did need the maids. Nathaniel Bourbon had no time to cook, because what he did mattered. From what she'd gathered, he had raised and contributed literally millions of euros to charities, and that, she had to admit, was more important than vacuuming.

He was nice, possibly the nicest wizard in the world. Rosie was nice too. Everybody was nice, except for Lucas. Hermione had been here for two months, and wonder of wonders, they hadn't killed each other. Quite. Family meals were awkward. Apparently, as far as he was concerned she was just an illegal squatter, hardly worth his attention. The first time he ignored her, it was embarrassing. The second time, it was annoying. The third time, it didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered, not the country or living in a castle or everything being so big or everything being foreign—Hermione was going to _make_ him see her. Unalterable fact. She'd do it if it killed her.

Still, life was brilliant, overall. It wasn't that this fact changed. It was that this woman showed up.

The first Hermione heard of it was when she wandered into the red drawing-room one evening and heard her father there, arguing with somebody.

"She has only just gotten the pieces of her life glued back together," he was saying in a very patient voice. "Her place is here, they cannot have her."

"She's eleven," the woman said, and Hermione deduced they were talking about her.

So she stood there and eavesdropped shamelessly.

"Have you never heard of homeschooling?" her father retorted. "She is perfectly happy at home and considering the circumstances, it is more safe."

"She needs proper training."

"And you think she cannot have that here? With people who love and understand her? She is quite clever, if she needs to learn something she has the library. Tutors."

"You can't learn everything from books and tutors, Nate." The woman's voice grew impatient. "Aren't you the one always saying members of the house of Bourbon do not shirk their responsibilities? That they don't run at the first sign of adversity?"

"Yes, but—"

"And that Bourbons don't run away when things become unbearable, they face fate proudly, and without complaint? This is a direct quote, by the way. I think hiding is cowardly."

"She was _dead._ "

The woman's voice was still sharp, but more gentle. "She was, yes. Now let her live."

There was a long, tense pause, then, "I suppose she _must_ go out a little into society. There'll be a formal introduction, at the winter solstice." Then footsteps and the fire roaring to life, and then silence. Probably they'd left the room.

"You can come out, you know."

Hermione froze solid. Very hesitantly, she peeked around the archway. A pale woman with tousled white-blond hair stood on the fine Persian rug, brushing ash from a wide-brimmed black hat. She set the hat on the mantelpiece, glanced at her, then did a double take. "Fuck if you're not the spitting image of your mother, Louise. Or Hermione, isn't it? All grown up. Fuck me."

She didn't comment on the eavesdropping and Hermione was thankful. "I'm sorry but… do you know me?"

The woman wore a black cloak with thick fur covering the shoulders, that she shrugged off to hang over her arm. Without it, her body had a lean, slender look and something in her effortless manner marked her out as aristocratic. "Do _you_ know me?"

Hermione's gaze roamed over her sharply-defined face, down her windswept hair and robes of black velvet before settling on her boots, splattered with something that looked disturbingly like dried blood.

The woman also looked down, unfazed. "The problem with chimera blood is that it stinks to high heaven," she said as she kicked off the riding boots one by one, "and it's impossible to get off. These are probably ruined. Shame. It's good dragon leather. Heavy. Supple." She stopped inspecting the boots and looked up. "My name is Ariel."

Hermione stared blankly, and then it hit her. "Ariel—as in Aunt Ariel?"

"I'm not really your aunt, just..." Ariel waved her hand languidly. "Old family friend. We're most likely cousins—in the twentieth degree or thereabouts. Your family and mine came to power ten centuries ago and haven't stopped reminding anyone since."

Hermione tried to see if she could recall anything else, but nothing came to mind. Her eyes were drawn back to the witch's sleek robes, where a wolf in shattered chains had been worked in silvery thread over the breast. "What's that?" she blurted, pointing at the emblem.

"The crest of House Ehrenfels."

"Ehrenfels, you say? That's not French."

"I'm German."

"How do you know my family, then? Did you go to Beauxbatons?"

"Gods no, I'm a product of Durmstrang Institute."

Hermione had read _An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe._ She knew Durmstrang had a terrible reputation. She wondered what her law-abiding parents had in common with this decidedly odd witch—who was now staring intently at her face.

"Damn, this is strange," she muttered, "last time I saw you, you were commando-crawling around in nappies. Just a chubby, babbling thing. And now..."

Hermione's cheeks heated up. Great. That was how she wanted to be remembered: not potty-trained and chubby. "You didn't tell me how you knew my parents," she prompted. "And if you're German, what do you do here? Do you work with my father?"

"I'm self-employed. Family business. You won't have heard of us, we don't advertise."

"That doesn't tell me much."

"You'd find what I do very boring."

Hermione doubted that, but something made her decide not to press. Maybe the boots.

"You do know that I'm your godmother, don't you?" Ariel took in her shell-shocked expression. "Guess not. I was good friends with your mother. What do you say we go in the city sometime? I owe you some eleven years' worth of presents. I'll do my best to spoil you rotten."

"Oh… thank you? Well, you shouldn't, really... I mean, thank you so much, but—"

Ariel snorted and surprised Hermione by crossing the room to her. Up close she was stunning, with eyes an unusual shade of silvery blue in a lovely, sharp-boned face. She looked young, but tired, drawn. Hermione couldn't guess her age. Twenty-five? Thirty?

"Go ahead."

"I'm sorry?"

"Ask your question." Ariel smiled indolently. "I know you want to."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-four."

"Woah! You look younger. Are you married?"

"No. There are these... things I like to do. A husband would really cramp my style."

"No boyfriend? Or children?"

"No."

"Um, siblings?"

"No husband, no boyfriend, no parents, no siblings, no kids."

Indescribable sadness swept through Hermione. "And your godchildren," she blurted. "Well, that counts as kids, doesn't it? We're family!"

Ariel broke into a smile. "You're a fine kid," she said, nodding to herself. "I'll simply have to steal you away from your father. Raise you as my own. We'll have to bleach your hair, though."

It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to Hermione. It made her want to move in this woman's house and cook her warm meals. She told her so—in less disturbing words—and Ariel stared just long enough to make Hermione extremely uncomfortable, then patted her head, and wandered away.

Away. Gone. Through a doorway.

The next time Hermione saw her again, it was a week later in the library.

"I have a gift for you," was Ariel's greeting as she threaded her way between bookshelves and set a small package wrapped in tastefully subdued purple paper beside Hermione's quill.

"What—"

"Open it," she said, and Hermione did, sliding her finger into a crease in the sharp folded paper and easing it free. Inside was a white box, and inside the box was a framed magical photograph of her mother. She was young when the portrait was taken, a teenager, but she was stunningly pretty, and though her hair was long and curly and dark brown, it was Lucas's face Hermione saw in the delicate profile, not her own. In the east wing there was a long, narrow room lit with torches, glinting off the painted eyes of the portraits that lined the walls. All along the walls, generations of Bourbons looked down their noses from within their gilded frames, with straight eyebrows and serious brown eyes like Hermione.

But the woman in the photo had Lucas's pert nose and Lucas's mouth, his dimples and firecracker eyes when she grinned.

The words slipped out. "I don't look much like her, do I?"

"You do, but you take more after your father. Generally. Marie wasn't shy, like you two. Not shy, but—the quiet type. She was the loud type."

Hermione tried to keep the want out of her voice, and asked, "Why do you say that? Do you have lots of stories?"

"Happy ones, mostly," Ariel said, sitting in a squishy armchair, her voice distant. "Your mother… She was…" She said abruptly, "She had a fan club in school."

Hermione felt herself starting to grin. "No way."

"Yes way. Fast and fashionable. Marie Gauthier, the wickedest witch. She made men walk into lamp posts, I swear. Though it wasn't just her looks… It was the confidence. The attitude." Ariel made a gesture of holding a cigarette and flicking a lighter. "She had this thing she did. Used to put two cigarettes in her mouth, light them both and pass one over. And carry her pack of cigarettes rolled up in her sleeve."

Hermione stared. "My mother _smoked?"_

"For a whole bunch of years when we were younger. She smoked, drank, and flirted with older boys—even muggles, if you can believe that. Her uniform skirt was short, she wore her hair down and wild. See what I'm talking about? She was the closest thing Beauxbatons had to a bad girl."

"How is it bad to date muggle boys?"

"Most witches wouldn't come near muggles with a ten-foot broomstick. But your mum never cared what anyone else thought." Ariel settled herself more comfortably, placing one arm behind her head. "That's what I liked about her. She was the only one who had it all figured out. She wasn't a bitch. She wasn't a loser or a rebel. She just did whatever she wanted and didn't give an owl's hoot about public opinion."

"Sounds like it," Hermione mumbled. "I… It's hard to imagine. I pictured her—different, somehow. So you've known each other for a long time?"

"Since we were kids. Six, maybe. There was this party at my grandfather's, and Grace Gauthier—your grandmother—was invited. She was one of those American grandes dames. The kind who wore Chanel suits and always had a glass of wine in hand, and knew everyone. So she shows up at our manor, right, along with her snobbish, snooty daughter who comes right up at me, looks me up and down." Ariel stuck her nose in the air, sniffled imperiously and spoke in a high-pitched French accent, "You. What ees it with zis place? Zere ees a ghost in your basroom, you are aware, yes? And why are you so white, anyway?"

The impression was funny enough to make Hermione laugh. "What did you say?"

"I told her why don't you fuck off, oui?"

"And what'd she say to that?"

"She poured pumpkin juice all over me." Ariel shifted back into her snobbish impression. "Oh, so clumzee, pardon." She snorted. "That's how I met her. We fought. And just like that, we were best friends. We did everything together—played, studied, worked, rebelled..."

"Rebelled?"

"Marie never got into real trouble," Ariel reassured. "She was really bitchy, but she was never a bad person. Her heart was in the right place. And she was loyal as hell. Once she'd decided someone was worth it, no one could be a more ardent friend."

Was it possible to miss someone you'd never known? Sitting here, listening to this woman, Hermione had a sudden anger for everything she'd missed, this hole in her life, the unfairness of it all. Maybe it was because at first her mother had been a faceless ghost, and now pictures, stories, anecdotes filled in the blanks. Now she could imagine the what ifs, having someone who tucked you in at night, and read stories when you couldn't sleep, and showed you spells, and bought you your first wand.

She plucked at the golden divan seams. "D'you reckon it's okay to miss someone you've never known?"

Ariel seemed offended by the question. "Damn right it is. No one gets to tell you how to feel." She hesitated a second, then leaned over to smooth away the knot between Hermione's brows with her thumb. "Sometimes," she muttered, "I forget and pick up the mirror to call her. Still. After all these years… It seems like just yesterday. I miss it. Even the most mundane stuff—Marie letting herself in, bitching about how her day went. She was so dramatic. She could make me laugh over the slightest thing."

"My parents sound like opposites," Hermione said and her voice sounded funny so she cleared her throat.

"They were. Your dad's all serious and moody, and your mum was loud and cheeky. Nobody could have guessed they'd end up married, with two little twirlers of their own. Not to mention the family issue."

"Family issue?"

"Bourbons. Nathaniel's blood is so blue, it's a wonder he doesn't stain his shirts indigo when he cuts himself shaving. His mother's people are even bigger snobs—so there was all the scandal with Marie's father. A muggle's not received, not by the elite, and you can imagine which camp Bourbons fall into." Ariel gave a small head shake. "Your grandparents were wasted on the modern age. They ought to have been biblical. Lady Bourbon would have so enjoyed a good stoning. I can just see her scrabbling to get her fingers around the first stone."

"This isn't the Middle Ages," Hermione started to say but then she caught herself. Everything about the wizarding world seemed rather backwards and conservative. They put a lot of value in tradition: name, family, ancestors were everything. Honestly, arranged marriages weren't that shocking.

Her godmother seemed to understand anyway. "I know, the French wizards are hardcore. But your father's always been one stubborn, intelligent bastard. He was the only child of older parents, raised by nannies, and somewhere in all those lonely years, he formed his own ideas about how the world should work. And by the time anybody got around to pointing out to him that, for example, highborn princes did not marry halfbloods, he'd been past caring."

Hermione felt a warm fuzzy feeling of pride in her chest. "So, they got married," she prompted.

"Just before our Grand Tour—we traveled the world after graduation. Nate, Marie, this wizard, and I. With healthy sums of gold from our vaults and the connections of our parents we started on a one-year adventure. Of course," Ariel said contemplatively, "your father, ever the nerd, had the whole itinerary planned out carefully. It drove your mother crazy. She said, 'the best plan for a trip is not having a plan'.When we reached America, she said we leave the boys sleeping and run off to have some fun."

"You didn't!"

"We charmed a muggle car best we could, drove out to Texas and went canoeing down the Rio Grande." Ariel was smirking widely, now, her hands resting on her knees. "I can still see your mum whooping, hair blowing in the wind as she stood up at the wheel."

Hermione laughed, delighted. "And then?"

"Then... We went home, to war."

Conversation lulled then. There was a moment's uncomfortable silence, and as Hermione pondered on what to ask, Ariel ruffled through the books on the low table. _The Lineages and Histories of the Houses of Europe With Descriptions of Lords and Ladies and Their Children_ , _Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy_ , and _50 Things Every Pureblood Lady Should Know: What to Do, What to Say, and How to Behave._

"Now this is boring reading if ever I saw it. You could just brew a sleeping potion. It's as effective. Did Nathaniel ask you to study this?"

"No. I wanted to."

Her godmother made a sound that mingled disbelief with incomprehension and opened the first book. Hermione couldn't hold it against her. It was the biggest book she'd ever seen, a great thick leather-bound volume with yellow pages of crabbed and interminable script, the cover and title inlaid in brassy lettering.

Ariel started reading where she'd left off, the section on House Bourbon, scanning the pages attentively.

Hermione knew it almost by heart. Theirs was an old line, tracing their descent back to the Bituriges, Gaulish druids who lived two thousands years ago and liked forests and stuff. There was also this famous witch of the Middle Ages, Beatrice de Bourbon, also known as Beatrice the Bumptious, was a medieval witch no doubt as legendary as her contemporary Jeanne d'Arc, though far less beloved of writers and historians. Beatrice, yearning to write her name across the book of history, married a younger son of the king—after a streak of shady deaths. However, once the Statute of Secrecy passed into law and the French Revolution unfolded, Bourbon wizards and witches went into hiding and disappeared from the muggle scene. Notable modern Bourbons included eighteenth-century Domitille de Bourbon, the infamous researcher credited to have written 'all about the Imperius Curse' in her controversial masterwork titled _l'Art de la Manipulation_ ; Lionel de Bourbon, a taciturn politician with a tough-on-Muggles mentality who became Minister for Magic in the early 1900s; and Hippolyte de Bourbon who was widely believed to have helped finance revolutionary Gellert Grindelwald's rise to power—though he always denied it. Hermione had seen pictures of the man, he was her grandfather. He did look like a snob.

Ariel closed the book. "What were you looking for, exactly?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just… Well, it's because of Lucas."

"What does he have to do with anything?"

"He doesn't like me," Hermione said what was probably the understatement of the century.

Ariel stared at the table. "I suppose not. He's never forgiven you for leaving him." She gave a sidelong glance. "What has he done?"

"He says his real sister is _dead,"_ said Hermione, very crossly. "I just want to prove him wrong, that's all. I thought there might be something useful in there."

"Lift your right leg."

Hermione gave a baffled look, but propped her sock-clad foot on the table. Ariel leaned forward and raised up her nightgown to poke at the side of her knee. "See that birthmark? Lucas has the same on the other knee." She sat back and said flatly, "You don't need any books."

"Oh."

"Just show it to him."

"I don't think that'd change anything."

Ariel surveyed her. "Are you afraid of him?"

"Of course not," Hermione said briskly, "but you have to admit that he's rather impressive, isn't he?"

"...In what way?"

"He's, I don't know. Knowledgeable. He's got all these posh rules about how we're supposed to interact. Like he's some kind of nobility and we're all peasants."

Ariel nodded significantly. "Story time," she said, snapping her fingers. "Years back when your twin was a toddler, I took him to Berlin. Underground Berlin. There's this world-renowned black market with illegal creatures and shops where you can buy anything if you've got enough gold."

"Just like that? My father let you?"

"He didn't know. He was working in his study."

Hermione felt her respect for this woman go up a notch. She obviously had guts.

"We went shopping, right, Lucas and I, and when I had my back turned for about five seconds he decided to strip completely naked, nappy and all, in the apothecary. I only became aware when this lady tapped me on the shoulder and whispered into my ear, 'Excuse me, love, your child is dancing naked beside the shrunken heads'."

A picture formed in Hermione's head, and before she could stop herself, a snort of laughter blasted.

"You couldn't take him anywhere," Ariel went on with disgust. "Even at home he used to get into the weirdest shit. Once, he was four, I heard him talking to himself in the bath. So I went to check on him. He was using a small piece of cardboard to push this enormous tarantula in the direction of the bathtub and talking to the spider the entire time, like, 'excuse me, sir. Pardon me, sir, can I invite you to perhaps travel this way? Not that way, sir. Over here. No! Don't bite—Oh, sir. I cannot believe you've done this.'"

Hermione buried her face in her nightgown to bring her laughter under control. Her voice muffled, she said, "At least he was polite about it."

"What I'm trying to say is there's no need to feel nervous around him. You're just kids. Settle that with your wands and then shake hands. I, for one, would enjoy a spirited bit of duelling."

"Are you encouraging me to fight?"

"As my grandfather used to say, a fist is worth a thousand words."

"I don't think that's how the saying goes."

"It should." Ariel smiled ruefully. "Lucas might be your twin, but he's also a boy. You better brace yourself for frequent disappointment."

"I'm exaggerating a little, I guess. He's not so bad. . .And at least he always distract the guests," said Hermione brightly, "so they don't notice me."

"Don't worry. They'll notice. Especially at the ball."

"Where?"

"The winter ball. Nathaniel will introduce you to everyone. It's what, two weeks away, now."

"A ball? Are you sure we're going to a ball?"

"You're _hosting_ a ball."

Hermione started to feel panicky. "I really hope not. I hate meeting a lot of people at once. I will never get the names straight and I don't think anyone will wear name tags."

"Probably not."

"Oh, no. This will _never_ work. I mean, I'm hardly pureblood material. I barely know anything about France, the country, the customs. I'm sure to put a foot wrong. And I'm not sophisticated or pretty. I barely speak French—"

Ariel raised her hands. "Easy. Don't you have a tutor yet?"

"I do actually..." Hermione grimaced. December had taken on a rhythm, always the same schedule. French and etiquette lessons in the morning and afternoons spent reading up on magic and practicing spells. The etiquette-expert wizard specially hired for the occasion was seriously out of control. Yesterday he started quizzing Hermione on the names and responsibilities of all of her father's friends. Not only did she have to know exactly what they did, but also their marital status and the names and ages of their kids, if any. These were the kids Hermione was supposedly going to have to hang out with while celebrating Yule at the palace, she figured now. They will probably hate her as much, if not more, than Lucas. "I even have a dancing master, you know. And a maid who comes in the morning and evening to help me—she thinks I don't know how to dress myself. I've got to pretend so I don't hurt her feelings."

"You don't have to pretend, just tell her that she'd better make herself scarce. And about the ball, if you ever commit some sort of faux-pas and embarrass yourself..." Ariel gave a look that said she didn't think that was very likely and said, "Then you'll just have to lose yourself in the crowd."

Fairly reasonable logic, Hermione thought as she tried to stifle a yawn.

Ariel noticed. "I'll let you get some rest now. If you need anything, owl me. I'll see you soon anyway." She stood, gathered her cloak and hat. Before leaving, she said, almost offhandedly, "You know, your parents wanted a big family. Kids from one end of the chateau to the other. I'm sure your mother would've been terribly disappointed if she knew her children didn't get along."


	6. Chapter 6

**_6_**

"Oh Gods, so I had to go to Brazil on this Castelobruxo program my parents signed me up for, and I thought it would be, like, hanging out on the beach and partying in Rio. Instead we were supposed to catch fire slugs and explore the Amazon rainforest. Hello, who _cares_ about slugs? I'm from _Beauxbatons,"_ a girl with a fake tan said to a skinny boy as they picked at the hors d'oeuvres.

Frowning, Hermione dodged a bottle of champagne that floated through the air and gave the two teenagers her back. Her ears buzzed with the clatter of so many voices competing to be heard over the music. Over three hundred guests milled about, chatting with the ease of those who know each other well. Teenagers stood near the doors, lounging against balconies or walls. The fairytale castle, the guests all made Hermione feel particularly out of place. She had thought she was becoming used to it, but seeing the polished carriages, the impassive lords, the elderly witches with diamonds, it became clear just how far from it she was.

The moment people spotted her with her father, they went wide-eyed. Hermione found herself the uncomfortable center of attention as she was introduced to everyone. She'd lost track of how many times her father easily transitioned from small talk about so-and-so's political gossip and jokes, chuckling about how the Minister for Magic was so 'humble and self-effacing' to and _by the way may I introduce you to my daughter Hermione?_

But even when the guests were dying to go nuts over a juicy bit of gossip, they kept it together. They were wellborn. They were polite.

 _However it happened, it's a miracle you're here my dear!_

 _Nathan, you rascal, we had no idea you had another beautiful child hiding away!_

Lucas, for his part, was impressive. He laughed, he joked, he sparkled. Hermione started to think maybe it actually was genuine.

Now all the guests had passed through the receiving line and she stood at the edge of the dance floor, half-blinded by all the twinkle and dazzle. Chandeliers flickered overhead, illuminating the pearly curtains draped at mirrors and windows. White roses trees were placed at interval throughout the ballroom and blue ribbons with gold accents hung from candelabras and sconces. Enchanted harps played by themselves, accompanied by the otherworldly chant of wood nymphs. Waiters in white greek togas escorted guests to their appointed tables—all uniquely dressed as if attending a fashion show or a beauty pageant.

Hermione looked over a cloud of cigar smoke where a circle of conservatively-dressed men surrounded her father, who was dashing in shades of blue-teal and grey-slate, cape patterned with flying thunderbirds. She tried to localize Lucas, but before she knew it, she was flanked by four girls in their late teens, all wearing formfitting gowns and heels.

Hermione steeled herself, reminded of something she'd read about shark attacks… They surrounded their prey before tearing them apart.

"Hermione de Bourbon," the one wearing tangerine said in a breathy voice as she approached, as though Hermione's presence had literally knocked the wind out of her. "Why, how lovely you are. Don't you look just the same as your brother? The same cute little face!"

"Thank you," said Hermione, fascinated by the compliment. Her father had told her, "You're pretty, sweetheart," but that was sort of his job, and her brother had said, "Your tiara's on crooked," and after she'd fixed it, "The maid didn't do a bad job with your hair."

The witches introduced themselves: Vivienne de Rippert, Ondine Desmarais, Guenievre Hauteclocque, and Lorelei Sureau.

"So," Vivienne went on, "how do you like Bourgogne-l'Archambaud?" Her laugh tinkled through the air. "I assume it's no comparison to the—the village you lived in before. Becoming the heiress of such a house must be quite the challenge, _non?"_

It took Hermione a minute to respond. "The chateau and France are very different from what I'm used to," she said, not wanting to add to the general Parisian rudeness.

Ondine Desmarais took a sip from her flute and nodded emphatically. "I bet it is. I took a tour of muggle London once and I must say, these streets have nothing to do with ours. They don't even have proper homes. And the noise! Machines with dreadful beeping sounds, all hours of the day and night, and those muggles having to walk to get anywhere—did you know it takes them hours to travel to other countries? Hours! How _odd_ is that?"

Hermione tried to smile, but instead ended up twitching as the others voiced their agreement.

"Haven't you seen enough among them fools to work it out for yourself, Ondine? They are muggles, it's the best they can do with what they have," Vivienne de Rippert said. "They're suited to such lives. Unnatural, that's what it is."

The silver-robed witch—Guenievre—interjected, "If muggle streets disgust you so, why would you even go there?"

"Why do people visit circus sideshows? It's always amusing to see the freaks being put through their paces."

The sheer meanness of the answer took Hermione aback. "Well—"

"It's not the muggles' fault," Guenievre chided. "You should show pity, Vi. Do you think they wanted to be born magic-less? It's nature's course, simply."

"More like it's an abomination of nature, you mean."

The three other witches exchanged exasperated smiles and fond eye-rolls, as if to say, _There she goes again._

"This is serious, ladies," Vivienne shrilled. "There's a reason we hide from them. Witch burners, hunters, murderers… This is the reality of the muggle nature. What you call pity, I call idiocy!"

"Vi, it's the New Year. Can't we just skip the philosophical debates for once?"

"Someday you will be sorry you took so little interest in our kind's safety." Met with disinterested stares, Vivienne lifted her chin. "I can hardly be the only one here who realizes how concerning it is that muggles steal our children. And not any child—a _Bourbon._ Kidnapping her. Leaving her lordly father and brother heartbroken!" She whirled around to Hermione with righteous fervour. "They were terrible to you, _non?"_

"Not really. Muggles aren't so different from you and I."

The lack of support didn't deter Vivienne. "Hear!" she exclaimed, startling a nearby waiter. "Not so different… For Belenos's sake. She's been brainwashed by these things."

"No, I haven't," Hermione said, pretty sure it was exactly what she'd say if she had been brainwashed.

Lorelei Sureau leaned forward, black curls falling over her forehead. "You have grown around them, but don't go thinking muggles are like us, _chérie,"_ she said to Hermione, frowning in concern. "Hasn't it occurred to you that they weren't meant to exist?"

Vivienne bobbed her head along. "They weren't. Weak and dumb, with their short lifespans and sad little prejudices against sorcery. They see real power and can't wait to stamp it out." She sounded impassioned. "You—us—we've all been marginalized. We're forced to hide in the shadows, afraid of discovery while _we_ are the superior beings. I hope one day we'll put muggles in shackles and make them stand to hear their crimes enumerated. Having them and their muggleborn spawns running around is just gross."

Hermione felt as though she'd stumbled on some mythological creature. This girl was a total nutter.

Lorelei misinterpreted the congested look on her face, and actually squeezed her arm with sympathy. "Poor you, Hermione. What an awful time you must have had, raised in the dirt, never knowing your true parentage... _Quelle horreur!"_

Hermione's nose itched at the smell of far too much Chanel. "Honestly, it wasn't that bad," she said uneasily to the four teens staring at her. Only Guenievre appeared every bit as disinterested as she felt. She noticed Hermione looking and sent her a comradely roll of the eyes.

"Leave the poor child alone, Lorelei. Seriously, you're scaring her."

"Yes, you girls are no fun," Ondine cut in. "Don't you think it it must have been exciting, living among muggles? Like an adventure. Imagine," she whispered, "it would be like being a _mudblood!_ "

"Melusine, there is no need to be crass. Mind your language, will you?"

"Get off your high hippogriff, Guenievre. You're worse than my mother," Ondine vented before turning to Hermione. "I'd love it if you tell me all about it. Precious little else that passes for excitement round here, no?"

Hermione doubted that her account of looking through rubbish bins for food would be as thrilling as the older girl hoped, but she nodded obediently.

Ondine beamed. "You're the latest craze, Hermione Bourbon! Although these witches," she said, winking toward a group at the balcony, "are Americans. Can you believe it? From Ilvermorny, of course. Rumour has it they're making the rounds looking for fiancés here because their parents are broke."

"Don't you be rude," Guenievre scolded. "I'm sure they're nice."

"I didn't say they weren't nice, I said they were broke," Ondine retorted, looking around the ballroom. She blinked her eyes slowly. " _Grands dieux!_ Is that Iseult Faivre? Would you look at her! Pixie cut!"

"Hello," Lorelei murmured, following her line of sight, "the twenties called and they want their hairstyle back. Did she have lice?"

Vivienne giggled. "I heard she had this manic depressive fit and hacked it off with cutting hexes," she said in a confidential whisper. "She had to go to the salon to fix it. Everybody knows in our year."

"I think it's actually a wig!"

"Bet you're right, Ondine. It's too shiny—that's the telltale sign. I think it might be veela hair."

As the other witches prattled on about how expensive veela hair was, Vivienne raised her arched eyebrows at Hermione as if just remembering she was still here. "Have a cigarette with us?"

Before Hermione could even think of a reply, a hand clasped on her shoulder. "What are you doing?" Lucas scowled at her. "C'mon. Time to eat."

. . .

Sitting at a table covered with gold taffeta and white muslin with five other fellow underage witches and wizards, Hermione stared at the array of silverware.

Lucas was inconspicuously spooning bread crumbs into Yazid Beaumont's lemonade, while Baptiste and Gabrielle Delacour entertained themselves by making food sculptures instead of eating, because 'the foie gras's too nasty, and they haven't served the pastries yet, there's nothing else to do'. They'd nicked Lucas's plate, and stuck three guinea fowl pies on top of each other. Gabrielle linked them together with two cocktail straws, laughing maniacally.

What did they teach her at wizard playschool? When Hermione was little, they used to do face painting and so on. Though she liked Baptiste the best of all the other kids. He was nervous and smaller than her and also she was pretty sure she could take him on, which helped. Everyone was speaking in English for her—or trying to—but he took it upon himself to teach her how to swear in French.

They spent most of the evening joking and spotting the people the most comically dressed, or the drunken ones, and Hermione had such a good time. Everyone seemed to think she was terribly interesting, and to someone who had spent her life without friends, this was a heady combination. Approaching midnight, the crowd hushed and stopped dancing for the countdown. At _Trois, deux, un,_ champagne flowed, laughs, catcalls and cries of _"Happy New Year!"_ and _"Live for years!"_ rang out in the ballroom, and the ceiling filled with enchanted fireworks. As flying horses of red-and-gold sparks, pure-white bears, brilliant silver stars and blooming flowers whizzed through the air there were _oohs_ and _aahs_ of wonder. Then red-faced, smiling couples swarmed the dance-floor, drinks in hands.

Yazid Beaumont leaned toward Hermione and asked if she wanted to dance.

"Oh, but I'm not sure..."

"I am," he said and tugged her along while Baptiste cheered and Lucas looked indignant.

Hermione managed not to embarrass herself—seemed the lessons payed off, after all—and soon she was too busy dancing to think of anything except the delight of being at a party. Nearby her father was waltzing with Ariel Ehrenfels, beautiful in a fitted gown that had a slit up high on her thigh, ashy hair piled up in curls. Both whirled sedately about the floor, looking every inch the aristocrats born and bred into this world.

Fleur Delacour danced with an Asian wizard, and talked to Hermione as she passed near. "Cute," she mouthed approvingly toward Yazid.

Hermione beamed in answer. She hadn't met a Delacour she hadn't liked yet. The song ended, but her father intercepted her, sweeping her into the music. She barely had the time to catch her breath as they moved across the polished floor, colourful guests swirling by.

"You look flushed, dear," her father said. "Tired? Or is it the new shoes? Kick them off, if you want. Be comfortable," he advised. "Should I carry you back to your bedroom?"

"It's all right," Hermione said hurriedly. But her feet did hurt. "I'll just go to the bathroom for a bit."

. . .

The ball was _not_ Lucas's idea of fun. His face hurt from smiling, and he was sick of people kissing his cheeks and making him tell them how happy he was to have gotten back his sister. As if. It was bad enough that he'd been forced to pose for the reporter's camera with his head pressed against Hermione's.

And now his father was making him follow her like a house-elf.

Lucas stalked to the ladies' room and yanked the door open.

Hermione was sitting in one of the couches, trying to remove her blue sling-backs with some contortionist movements. She stiffened when she saw him enter. He sat two stools away, glaring. She had been scrubbed and starched and pampered until she practically shone; in her silk royal-blue dress with a complementary white sash even he couldn't call her names.

"…This is the girls' bathroom."

"So? I live there. Anyway, this is hardly a social visit. Father wanted me to check on you."

That made her relax. Him seeking her out only because his father'd asked, made her relax. She had a very warped view of people and it made Lucas tired.

When she went to wash her hands, Lucas wandered over, regarding his reflection. His clothes, infuriatingly, matched hers: ivory robes and cloak of blue velvet fastened at the right shoulder with a golden clasp in the shape of a crown.

Side by side, they did look like twins, Lucas was well aware. He'd become well aware, also, over the course of this evening, that he was perhaps a paranoid moron.

When Lord Beaumont arrived and saw Hermione, he jabbed a finger at her and asked, "How?"

"A slight mishap," Lucas's father replied.

"You old sinner," Beaumont told him, and laughed raucously as he walked into the ballroom. "Is the Minister coming?"

Out of everybody, Roland Rosier—distant cousin—had the most extreme reaction. He gaped for a while, then rubbed his forehead and said, "Well, welcome back."

And that was it.

Lucas clung resolutely to his freakout. It was all he had. He bit out, "You danced with Yazid."

She had the nerve to look delighted about it. "Yes, I can't get over how kind he has been."

"He says you're interesting."

"Do you know, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were true," Hermione said happily. The more she got over being skittish and stunned by culture-shock, the more she was turning out to be a charming goof. If she kept this up, Lucas might end up liking her, and that was just salt in the wound. "I'm interestingly abnormal, I guess."

"I guess. Things that are normal are just normal. Anyone can be normal. Most things that are weird are cool."

"So what you're getting at is, I'm weird?"

"I didn't say that," Lucas snapped.

"You might as well have."

"Gods—don't put words in my mouth!"

"Don't get so upset when someone takes the mickey."

"Who's Mickey?"

Hermione burst out laughing. "You're really something. Take the mickey, take the piss, have a laugh, make fun of somebody."

"I may not have had your education, but I know plenty of words that you don't!"

"Right, also the proper way to put on a tiara, Latin and dance _la valse._ "

"Shut _up_ ," Lucas said with such venom, it made her recoil. "Just because today you're not ugly and your hair doesn't look like a brown octopus attacking your head, it doesn't mean you can—"

"Why are you so _mean_ to me?" she asked in a shout, and, much to Lucas's surprise, with sudden tears. He'd never seen anyone cry defiantly before. "What is wrong with you?"

"Don't cry," Lucas shouted back, and she made this incoherent sound of rage before punching him.

His head whipped back, he raised his hand to his face in shock. He wasn't planning on ever fighting a girl, but some deep reflex made his leg shoot up in retaliation. A scuffle ensued and they rolled together on the ground in a furious confusion of flailing arms and kicking legs and muffled yelps. Lucas's head hit the wall, his grip caught on the sink above, and—

Something gave way.

With a creak and a _whoosh,_ the whole world turned on its axis. Plunging them both into the dark.

"Wh—?" Hermione gasped, wiping at her eyes. "What happened?"

Lucas wouldn't know. One moment, they were fighting. A moment later, the entire section of wall had swung on its axis, depositing them here—wherever 'here' was.

He couldn't tell. He just knew that everything in it was close. And stale. The air smelled of rot and mustiness. Slowly, they pushed onto all fours and stood up, as much as they dared.

"Is it some kind of secret passage?" Hermione asked in a whisper. "I can't see a thing."

She made a movement forward and Lucas bared the passage with his arm. "Stay where you are," he ordered over his shoulder. Belenos only knew what was in there. He still had nightmares because of the boggart he found in a remote corridor that one time. With his free hand, he felt around the space. "I don't know. More like a secret closet."

"It must have been a refuge. A hiding place. People built them during the Terror when they were hunting wizards. That's why there's no map of the castle. Many have died trying to invade us during the wars. There is no natural or artificial light. The air is stale because—"

"Hermione. We're trapped together. I don't think this is the time to remind me that I don't like you."

"Right. Well, there must be a way out of here."

Lucas scouted the wall, pushing on each brick. Nothing. He tried throwing his weight against it in an attempt to make it rotate back the other direction. He just succeeded in hurting his shoulder and yelping.

"Wait—I'll just _—Lumos!"_ A light appeared at the end of Hermione's wand, blinding white. She held it over their heads, and walls reflected from all sides, as if they were in a stone closet. "Can you see that?" she asked, pointing at a ladder built upright against the wall, which extended up to a trapdoor.

She made a gesture to climb, but Lucas pushed her. "I'll go first," he snapped. Couldn't she see how unsteady that thing looked?

Hermione muttered something that sounded like _tosser_ but let him pass.

With a mighty push of his hand and a rusty creak, the trapdoor gave way and a crack of moonlight flooded in. Lucas crawled up and found himself in the attic. _Oh_. The chateau had always been a showplace, more museum than home, but the attic was a secret. A dress rack with his mother's old things, antique furniture to climb, silver to smudge, and enough medieval clothing to provide with hours of make-believe stories of knights rescuing princesses. Trunks and shelves filled with the detritus of family shipwrecks, inscrutable objects from centuries gone by, honest-to-goodness swords, jewellery, creaking armours, wax seals, photographs and paintings of unidentified ancestors, and the occasional rare find like that soft gold crown. A slender circlet of entwined fleur-de-lys, which Lucas had once stuck on his head, so when he came down for dinner he looked like a prince. His father and the butler had indulged him, calling him _Your Highness_ all night.

"Can I come up?"

Lucas held out a hand to haul Hermione through. She looked around in wonder, grimy streaks on her face and cobwebs in her hair. He hoped the spiders had vacated. "This place must be full of treasures," she said breathlessly, as though she had heard his memories.

"Yeah." The attic had always been his secret playroom with the wooden floors and dust-covered hatboxes.

Hermione opened a trunk to reveal a stack of folded, faded fabric, wooden boxes, an accordion file full of paperwork, a stack of envelopes bound together.

Lucas stifled a sneeze and picked up a blue notebook, flipping through the pages.

"Oh my God..." Hermione nudged him and pointed to a carnet with half the pages ripped out. "Would you look at this!"

Lucas squinted his eyes. Written in a pretty penmanship was their mother's maiden name: _Marie Elizabeth Gauthier._ The diary was labeled some twenty years ago, in 1967. In September, they read this entry,

 _My trunks are packed, my traveling clothes laid out, and now I am supposed to try to catch a little sleep. But how could I sleep when I'm leaving in only seven hours? Papa is not entirely keen (then again, he's not keen on anything witchy) but Mother thinks it'll be beneficial for me to go out in the world, meet friends my age, share a dormitory. Something about not having a nanny to unpack my trunks and no housemaid to run my bath. Beyond pathetic, if you ask me. Why should I be forced to lower my standards for the dubious prospect of making a friend or two?_ _Ariel says I'm a snob. She is disturbed by leaving home, but I do think it's all rather exciting. Of course, she will go to Durmstrang, which is a school for the barbaric, Mother says, and nothing to get excited about. I have tried to explain to Ariel that Durmstrang doesn't offer ballroom dancing and she shouldn't enroll there but she just says things like 'Beauxbatons sucks' and 'Put down my sword, Marie.'_

Lucas smiled and turned the pages to an entry three years later.

 _Balthazar de Rippert just asked me if I intended to spend this month writing in my diary during class and expect him to do all the work like last year. Well, pardon me! I think someone is rewriting history. WHO couldn't manage to master the draconifors spell in Transfiguration? I could've gone out with the fifth-years, but NO, had to tutor the douchebag in the common room._

 _Anyway I've been thinking about my birthday. I told my parents not to even dare throwing me a party. The very thought of pink makes me want to hurl. I wonder if they'd let me travel with Ariel—she's going to Iceland with her uncles, Alaric and Torsten. I've never met Torsten, but from her letters, I can tell he's hilarious, crazy, like Lord Gerhardt (maybe crazier). Though Papa will probably want me to attend another boring gala and talk to boring people with boring names like Jean or Michel. I don't want a Michel Dupont who wears boring suits or forgets to shave. I want scary but handsome Ehrenfels wizards who'd put the fear of God into you by just cracking their knuckle—_

 _I must go. Balthazar is being a drag and keeps poking me in the ribs and saying, 'Stop writing and help me mince the daisy roots.'_

"I want to read these," Hermione said, and Lucas looked at her. The diary did look like better-than-average reading material. It was so strange to read the entries and think of his mother writing them. Maybe there'll be something embarrassing about his father and godparents in there.

"We should leave," he said, gathering up the pile of books and notebooks. He led the way to the attic's door which opened onto stairs leading to the second floor, then they went down the marble staircase to his bedroom.

Lucas went to wash the grime off his hands. He emerged from the bathroom to the sight of Hermione curled up in an armchair as she rapidly consumed an old notebook. He looked at her and checked the clock on his desk. Past two, and the party was still in full swing judging from the strains of music coming from downstairs. He went to rummage in his wardrobe.

"Here, catch."

Hermione ducked just in time to avoid the clothes he'd tossed.

Lucas scoffed and went back into his dressing-rom. From her reaction, you'd have thought he'd thrown her a bludger. He heard her mutter, "But what am I supposed to do with these?"

"What do you think? Wear them."

"But I can just go back to my—"

"For Melusine's sake, just do it."

Hermione changed and migrated to the middle of the bed while her brother showered. The dragon-patterned pyjamas were just the right size.

"Scoot over." Lucas settled on the bed, his shoulder-length hair brown and wet from the shower. "Did you read that part about Balthazar de Rippert? Vivienne's father. I saw you talking with her." He grinned. "Crazy, isn't she? I mean, she looks sane—except when you actually start _listening_ to her."

Hermione didn't smile. She studied him suspiciously. He'd given her the cold shoulder for weeks, they fought, and he wanted to chit-chat? She was too tired to argue, and she could see the book in her lap sort of beckoning to her, saying, _Come and read me, you know you want to._ "What do you want?"

Lucas blinked. "Just talk."

"Why?"

"Can't I talk to my sister?"

"Sister? Woah. That's not what you were saying before."

"No, but I'm..." He stopped himself, and said, way too quietly, "You're infuriating."

"You're one to talk."

They both remained silent, locked in a staring contest. And it occurred to Hermione that they were more alike than she'd first realized.

Stubborn.

"What now?" she said. "Round two of you ignoring me?"

"I'm sorry about that. It was a rude thing to do, but I didn't believe..." Lucas tugged on a lock of his hair. "I know you're my sister. That's it."

She only stared.

"Look, I didn't handle things well since you came to the chateau."

"No, really?"

"Anyway," Lucas muttered. "I've been thinking… if I were in your shoes… I'd be thinking, what a jerk. So, if you're willing, we could start over? Please? I really am sorry."

Hermione took a deep breath, hating how she felt, but having to ask. "Do you hate me?"

"Of course not." Lucas frowned and corrected, "At first yes but it was only because I didn't believe you. Or I did, but I didn't want to _admit_ that I believed you. But you... I just... I don't know. I'm sorry."

"You don't think I'll ruin your family?"

"You mean, am I afraid of Father deciding he loves my loser British twin sister more than his golden baby? Not a chance."

Hermione snorted a laugh. "You _are_ a tosser."

"Must run in the family."

"No, it's just you. And I didn't choose to live in London, you know."

"I sure hope you didn't." Lucas rolled over to his side of the bed, shuffled, and came back up with two cans. "Try this. It's American."

Hermione studied the silver-lined can of _PepperMint Mirth_ and popped the lid open. For a few moments they just lay there on the fluffy pillows, sipping fizzy, minty drinks.

Then Lucas sat up. "All right. I do want to know about London," he said, eyes sparkling. "Who did you live with? In whose house, which neighbourhood? Did you go to school? Tell me _everything."_

Hermione couldn't help laughing. She could totally imagine him cornering the Japanese ambassador downstairs and ordering him to explain Tokyo. But he was interested in _her_. So she made herself comfortable, and told him about the Grangers and their neighbourhood and Larry and Emily and whatever else she could think of, and she felt something inside of her lurch and fall into its righteous place as Lucas laughed at her stories.

. . .

Sometime after four, the double-doors of the bedroom opened a crack, casting a beam of light around the floor. Two silhouetted figures hovered in the doorway, whispering to one another.

"I told you they were sleeping."

"Yeah. Wanted to make sure nothing crazy was going on."

"Now, Ariel, what sort of mischief could two eleven-year-olds ever commit?"

"Who knows? When I was their age I used to sneak out at night and ride my broom to Berlin. I had a thing for underground cagefighting."

"I cannot believe you didn't get caught."

"I did get caught. I wasn't grounded or anything. Grandfather thought it was a good character-building initiative."

"...I'd like to say I'm surprised, but Lord Gerhardt's idea of bringing up a child was to send you three days in the woods, no?"

"Just me and a knife."

"Charming."

"Don't mock the training runs, Nathaniel. You never had to eat squirrels, mice, grasshoppers, or whatever other shit—"

"I told you several times not to mention eating insects in my presence. It's unseemly."

"Listen to you. You're such a wimp. I'm not sure why I'm willing to be seen with you in public." The double doors creaked as they opened wider, and a pair of silvery eyes peered out. "What's that carnet in Hermione's hands? I've seen it somewhere."

"I have no idea, but aren't my children adorable? They look so precious cuddled together. We should let them sleep."

"Adorable? Just wait until they grow up." The doors closed and footsteps moved leisurely down the hallway, the two voices fading away. "Did I tell you about the owl I received from Durmstrang?"

"Your cousin again?"

"Nighttime wanderings, out of the school grounds. In some goblins-owned forge in the neighbouring village."

"Upholding the family legacy, I see. Interested in swords?"

"Axes. He's at that age, you know. Obsessed with all things lethal or illegal. Gods, does that take me back."

"Do you know, I never quite understood your people's fascination with blades, like some common muggles."

"Muggles, wizards, goblins... They all die all the same once you slice their heads off, Nate."


	7. Chapter 7

**_7_**

Blaise Zabini was a British wizard who shared Lucas's hatred for tutors, love of outdoor war games, and interest in contraband firecrackers. He sported charcoal pricey robes and the most contemptuous stare that Hermione had ever seen.

She was wishing she'd had time to change out of her ice-cream-cone-patterned nightgown before Lucas'd dragged her downstairs when Blaise finally cracked a smile.

"The hair," he said, nodding, like the world made sense again. "She'll do."

Lucas beamed and tugged them both along inside the foyer. He had cheered up a lot in the last months. Compared to before, in fact, he was a ray of sunshine. If Hermione had known this would happen, she would have socked him much sooner.

"We've painted eggs for Ostara," he was telling Blaise happily, showing off the graceful white altar they'd put up for some wizard holiday that celebrated the spring equinox. "Terrific time. Rosemary and basil, we've picked from the garden—"

" _I'_ ve picked basil," Hermione corrected. "You couldn't tell the difference between weeds and real plants and then you started chasing this rabbit."

Blaise, she privately thought, must be really used to Lucas. The only reaction that statement got out of him was a quirked eyebrow. "Anyway," he said, dropping that subject for the good of all, "my mum and my grandmother are both complaining that they never see you, Bourbon, so you're supposed to come for dinner."

"Why does _your grandmother_ want to see me?" Lucas demanded.

"'So young, and no woman to watch over him! I think about what his father must feed him, and I die a little inside!'" Blaise said in a high-pitched voice. Presumably a grandmother-imitation.

" _Blaise!"_ Lucas shouted. "Are you _ever_ going to tell her that I don't cry alone at night? This is crazy! Do you know the pitying _looks_ she gives me?"

"It serves you right," Blaise said with an insolent smile. He was a pro at bullying Lucas, and on top of that, an expert on Hogwarts. Hermione was really getting to like him, despite all his snark.

"How?" Lucas wanted to know.

"And she wants to meet your sister, more like," Blaise said, ignoring that. "How you've been getting along, and all."

"Along!" Lucas clutched his heart dramatically and grabbed the altar for support. "My sister says…! Never mind what she says! She drags me to the library and there's silence and staying still and there's so many stupid books, Blaise, you have no idea. _So many books_. She never wants to play, all she wants to do is _read_ and when she's not in the library she's in the kitchens baking with the chef—"

"With the help?" Blaise shuddered. "I'd kill myself."

"I know! And you'd think all this time hanging out with me would have trained the boringness out of her. I'm not sure how that's managed not to happen really. She's going to have trouble making friends at school."

"I wouldn't worry too much about that. There ought to be other fellow swots in school she can befriend."

" _Worse_! What if she wants to join the chess club or gobstones club or runes club or some other rule-the-world-someday club—"

It was like Hermione wasn't even there. She pointed a finger at them. "Sorry to interrupt," she said sharply, "but not everyone's lived with wizards all their lives! Some of us only found out a couple months ago they have magic! Some of us are being thrown into a new world and don't appreciate being ignorant and some of us are only trying to _do_ _something about it!_ "

"Oh, but I _like_ her," came a feminine, throaty voice.

Hermione spun around to watch two silhouettes walking through the great front-doors. Her father, with an expression of casual amusement, and a woman, who was laughing in delight, clapping her hands together.

"Mum's a hugger," Blaise warned under his breath.

"Pleased to meet you, Mrs Zabini—" Hermione was roped in a hug before she could finish.

"Enora, darling." Mrs Zabini pulled back to study her, and Hermione was suddenly very self-conscious of her pyjama-clad, frazzled self. This woman was beautiful, her cheekbones high, her skin a deep brown with cool undertones. Everything about her screamed class, from her styled bun to her high-collared black robes with rubies sewn into the bodice and dagged sleeves that almost touched the floor. "So delightful to finally to meet you." To her father, she said, "You're right, Nathan, she has the Bourbon nose."

"I told you, did I not?" He looked smug. "Lovely."

Hermione studied Blaise Zabini too. Genetics never ceased to astonish her. He had inherited the good looks as well as the haughtiness.

Lucas nudged her. "Get dressed. We're going out." He jerked his thumb to a black carriage awaiting before the front-steps, pulled by two temperamental black winged-horses.

Hermione looked at her father blankly.

"Ah, it's only you, children. I have work to do but Enora wanted to take you out. And I advise you to hurry, before those murderous beasts maim our stableboy."

Moments later, the carriage was hurtling in the sky, the countryside shrinking into a patchwork of greens and yellows.

Hermione had gone into Wizarding Paris to buy her wand during the winter, the city had been a silvery wonderland. Now, in March, the afternoon sun was golden, the sky orange where it fell across the rows of elaborately cut buildings, their iron-black balconies and windowsills spilling over with flowers, red poppies and pinkish daisies and yellow tulips. The air was full of the expectation of summer as wizards and witches were out for a Saturday stroll, eating in cafés and restaurants, young people drinking cocktails, children carrying sorbets. The smell of food was overwhelming—freshly baked bread, slowly roasting chickens, seafood in butter and garlic sauce, meaty odour of sizzling thick steaks... And all mingled with smoke from cigarettes dangling between fingers. Parisian witches greeted each other with kisses as they stopped on the pavement, delicate under their loose dresses, their ankles slender, cheeks sharp under pointed hats.

Mrs Zabini certainly didn't look out of place among them. She was gorgeous. Shockingly, even. She was so pretty… so nice. Smiling so wide. It felt like a trap.

But it wasn't. As they sat at a café in Lutetia Avenue, most popular wizarding alley downtown, she regaled Hermione with amusing stories while Blaise and Lucas chatted, switching back and forth from French to Italian so quickly that Hermione couldn't help but wonder how they made sense to each other.

Also, Hermione, who'd been living in a remote countryside chateau, had forgotten what a neighbourhood felt like, one where people lived and ran into each other. As they sat, people came by—people Mrs Zabini knew, people Lucas knew, and to her amazement, people _she_ knew.

Ondine Desmarais came to her with a squeal-infested hug, and "Oh! How have you been? Look at you!"

Baptiste Delacour's father, who owned the stationary shop down the street, tempted them with rainbow ink and peacock quills, and the wandmaker arrived children in tow and dark circles under his eyes—"Vinewood, how ees eet working for you, Mademoiselle? And yours Monsieur, sycamore, was it? With cores from the same dragon, _oui_ …"—and Lucas and Hermione watched in bemusement the toddlers running around.

Through it all, Mrs Zabini wore an expression of cool politeness. However, after, she warned about keeping bad company. Some of these people, she said with lowered breath, are new money and others are halfbloods and one cannot be seen with such acquaintances.

The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring shops. As they admired the colourful display window of Mademoiselle Capucine's headgear shop, Hermione realised she didn't have any hat. Skirts, shirts, pyjamas, robes, but no hats. And it was on her school supplies list.

Mrs Zabini was dead upset about this. Hermione tried to explain that she couldn't possibly bother with shopping when there were all those spells to try but she was all, "Darling, where did you get the idea that academics were more important than deportment? Your father, I'd wager. With him, it's always books. You _need_ hats!"

And so, within one hour, they had visited a seamstress, milliner, glove shop, tailor. Enora said she'd never seen a young lady who needed so many articles of clothing. Still, she looked like she was enjoying herself.

"I've always wanted a daughter," she confessed as they climbed back in the carriage. "Next month, we'll order gowns."

"Next month? But—"

"You don't think I'm done with you, do you?"

"But I can't take up all your time, Mrs Zabin—"

"Enora, darling. And you shan't have a choice. Now, what else do you need help with? Dancing? Potions? I am a dab hand at poisons, I must say."

Hermione decided she loved this woman.

. . .

Lucas was climbing the stairs two at a time when he heard noises. People in the east wing.

"Hello?"

There was no answer but the conversation continued. Lucas skipped across the landing, entered the first drawing-room, and passed from one to another in succession. Past the oak-panelled dining-room, the medieval drawing-room with the round stone table, the beige sitting-room with the armchairs padded in purple velvet, the romantic rose-and-silver morning-room—until he stopped in the fifth archway. Cream, peach, solid ebony and a slash of burnt orange; the colour scheme of the music room.

Sunlight poured in behind the grand piano, backlighting Hermione's hair and setting Blaise's green robes aglow.

"Gryffindor, really?" Blaise's voice was high and cutting and oh-so-amused. "Cocky and reckless, the whole lot of them. Slytherin is where you want to be."

"Right, if you're mean and arrogant!"

"Which he is," Lucas put in, and heads swivelled toward him. What the hell, he wasn't going to wait out whatever meandering, waste-of-time conversation the anglophiles felt like they needed to have. "What does it matter?" he wondered aloud. "You're not even going there, Hermione. You should be asking _me_ about Beauxbatons, actually."

Hermione rolled her eyes and fled the room.

Blaise smirked. Blaise was given to evil smirking. He hopped off the bench, saying, "I really don't think that's what she's got in mind, though. She's upset about Beauxbatons."

"Why?"

"Why ask _me_?"

Jerk was up to something. Lucas stared at him, but that smirk said _dream on_ , so Lucas eventually let him saunter to the fireplace. Working Blaise out was never worth the trouble it took. He was always on Lucas's side, anyway, so might as well let him do whatever weird things he wanted and not worry too much about it.

Hermione was hiding in the library. She thought she was all sneaky earlier but she was obvious to him. Lucas followed her. He liked to make fun of her but to tell the truth the library wasn't completely uninteresting. His father was a workaholic, so the second tier was for arithmancy. There was a section dedicated to magical martial arts: Ariel's. Lucas had a small stockpile of tutors-approved textbooks. Hermione's shelves were more original.

 _Animal Ghosts of Britain. Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales. Why British Magizoology Matters. Magic in Britannia. Merlin: Between Myth and Reality. Hogwarts, a History._ And works by some old English historian witch.

The books may be school-related, but there was a theme. An annoying theme. "Hermione. You're buying the wrong stuff. I'm not even sure you go to the right shops."

Hermione peered over the top of a massive biography of Morgana. "Oh no, these are really helpful. I mean, I'd like to know about other cultures…well. Some countries get a raw deal. Did you know the British were peaceful and independent for many years—self-sufficient, even, before their wars? I'm interested, is all."

A level of interest that was frankly weird. "It's just a big waste of time. We don't go there, ever."

"Why not?"

"Father hates Britain. He won't talk about why."

Unimpressed stare _._

"I think…I think he took it pretty hard when Mum—and you—died. She died in Britain, and Dad just. Brings back bad memories, probably."

Hermione's face went still. "Oh," she said, looking away. "Of course. But he came to get me in London, how—?"

"He didn't exactly have a choice, did he? Look, _why_ are you interested?"

"Oh, it's nothing."

It was clearly not nothing.

"What's wrong with Beauxbatons?"

"I don't have a problem with Beauxbatons; Blaise's mad," Hermione blatantly lied, eyes wandering to the shelves. "Any book you'd recommend?"

She was not even subtle about changing the subject. This would turn out to be an entire hour of lying and question dodging, Lucas predicted it. He'd be more likely to find out by riffling through her precious Briton books. So he did.

And regretted it instantly.

"Hermione, is there a reason you're hiding this in _Hogwarts, a History_?"

Hermione zoomed in on the Hogwarts acceptance letter he clutched and went fantastically red. Which confirmed every suspicion he had.

"What would you go to Hogwarts for? You lived there! You already know all about Britain! You're going to Beauxbatons!"

"I am," she said, and it was said so miserably that Lucas paused.

 _Upset_ , Blaise had said. Melusine, understatement of the century. "You don't want to go to Beauxbatons?"

Hermione kept staring blindly ahead. It was freaky. "No," she whispered. "Not really."

"You don't?" Lucas had kind of guessed it, but the implications were so _huge_. "You're going to Hogwarts? For _seven years?_ "

Hermione blinked and leaned forward, any and all distress replaced by an annoyed expression. "Don't be stupid. Bourbons have attended Beauxbatons academy for centuries, our parents attended Beauxbatons." She spoke like she was reciting a lesson to their tutor. "It's a longstanding tradition, and we don't tamper with traditions. The words matter, so do the ways, that's what keeps society together."

It _was_ true but… She didn't seem furious about it, which irritated Lucas. And as if their father would care. He just wanted them to be healthy and talented, he was not particular about the area. "Why would you choose _Hogwarts_ , though?" Lucas was really hung-up on that. "I'm sure we'd get rooms most kids would swap their wands for in Beauxbatons. Even Durmstrang, because Ariel."

"Well." Hermione's eyes went flying earnest **-** wide. "It's true that I'm British, but I have never experienced the wizarding point of view," she said eagerly and started babbling about Hogwarts and its enchanted ceiling that showed the weather outside and London's amazingly concealed train platform and Harry Potter the boy-who-lived and did he know that Hogwarts was the most heavily haunted place in Britain? Because it said so in _Sites of Historical Sorcery._ About Beauxbatons, she said, "They just look like terrible snobs to me. And we'll probably have to wear a beret with our uniform and everybody looks like a stupid prat in a beret." About Durmstrang, she said, "Well, they aren't exactly a cheery bunch, are they?"

Valid points, all. It wasn't that Lucas didn't understand the appeal of wanting something badly. He got that. He didn't want to, but he got it. "Seven years," he repeated mournfully.

Hermione gave him a strange look. "What are you on about? Don't worry, I got no delusions about where I'll be going. It's fine. We're off to Beauxbatons, together. An exclusive private boarding school in Europe is hardly the worst I could do. I only kept the letter because I like to look at it. You know, like a keepsake."

This statement was delivered with resigned acceptance. Lucas found himself growing indignant on her behalf. He wanted to shake her until she promised to be selfish, but his father insisted that wasn't how it worked. "I _want_ to go to Beauxbatons," he informed her.

"I know," Hermione sighed. "Lucky you. Seven years."

They stared unhappily at each other. There was no solution to this problem. If she went to the Brits, Lucas might be lonely. But if she didn't go, she'll be terribly unhappy for _years_. He complained and threw things when he was unhappy, but Hermione? Hermione _sucked it up_. It was worse.

 _Let's have a farewell party or cry or something_ , he wanted to say, but what came out is, "What do we do?"

"We go play and forget about this rubbish," Hermione said, forcibly light. "I'll get a parlour game. You get food."

"We go tell Father you don't want to board in France," Lucas decided. "Then he can start making accommodations."

Hermione blanched. "Don't, don't, don't!" she screeched, flapping her hands hysterically. "He'll hate me!"

There was only one thing to do. Lucas not only dragged her to their father's office against her will, but also immediately tattled that, "She wants to go to Hogwarts and learn British magic, like go in the woods to hug woodland creatures, or whatever it is these freaks do for fun."

" _Hogwarts_ ," his dad repeated, like it was a word he didn't know how to define. "That is… half a world away from me. Is it true, sweetheart?"

Hermione was staring, mouth open. Apparently, of all the ways she had expected him to react, that one hadn't made the list. "Yes? But I—"

"I assumed…" Something complicated happened behind his eyes, though his expression revealed nothing more than reflection. "It _is_ the custom in the family for the children to be educated abroad at one point. It strengthen ties with other countries and gives them a wider education. And the British do have a good curriculum and standard, regardless. If you feel strongly about this, why not."

Lucas grinned, unsurprised by the quick capitulation, but Hermione was still doing her impression of a gaping fish. "But you don't like British people," she squeaked. "And Beauxbatons is _tradition_."

Lord Nathaniel Bourbon waved these perfectly reasonable objections away. "Our… grievance against the British goes back only a generation, but they have proved useful allies for centuries. They were honoured guests when I was young. And surely the customary school can be…switched. Or something." He said it casually, as if bending mind-blowingly long family traditions was no big deal.

"She was scared you'd be angry with her." Lucas's comment earned him an elbow in the gut. "Well you _were!"_

" _Lucas!_ "

"Why would I be?" their father asked gently.

"I didn't want—" Hermione cut herself off and made this miserable face. "I didn't want to disappoint you. You're…" She trailed off again, her voice wavering. "You're so nice, and you put up with everything. You were so happy when I got the Beauxbatons letter, and we had this nice dinner, and I. How could I tell you? How could I say, oh, sorry, you're giving me everything and sending me to school, but I'm an ungrateful spoiled brat—"

Hermione stopped talking this time because their dad had grabbed her and pulled her into a hug, and she'd have to go on talking into his robes. She didn't try—Lucas thought she might actually have been shocked silent.

"It's very mature of you to say that. But you misunderstand. If studying in an old manor and eating beans on toast makes you happy, then it will make me happy as well. That is what I wish. I wish you both all the happiness you are capable of."

Hermione tried to escape the hug. He didn't let her. She laughed, almost hysterical, and hugged him back. "We don't eat beans on toast."

"Beans or not, I'll be twinless at Beauxbatons," Lucas said. "You're lucky I'm such a self-sacrificing saint, Hermione. My new classmates'll soon appreciate me too. School's going to be an _adventure_."

Now his father looked worried, for some reason. "Please tell me you will behave yourself and remember that people expect a boy of your class to be responsible."

"I will behave… myself?"

"Somehow I'm not reassured. I will have a word with Fleur Delacour before school starts."

"Hey! It's not me you should be worried about! Those British weirdos might get angry if Hermione calls them idiots and gloats about her cleverness at every opportunity."

"Really, son? If I recall correctly, your sister isn't the one who stole Solange Rosier's jackalope and tried to convince me to ship it to America."

"Stole? Excuse me, I _liberated_ that jackalope. I just wanted to send it home."

"So you always claimed. Enough of your antics, now, be good and ring for tea."

Lucas felt very underappreciated.

. . .

The following months passed in a lovely blur of sunny days. The summer was in full throttle, the chateau glowing like amber stone in a bed of emerald velvet. Every morning Hermione went with her father on his visit to the stables, and even at that hour the air was already warming up. They ate in the gardens most nights now, with the Zabinis or the Delacours and several times they were invited to other families' manors in the countryside. Hermione was almost starting to like Vivienne de Rippert. When the teen wasn't campaigning for enslaving muggles, she was alright.

During the day, Hermione read in her bedroom or joined Lucas and Blaise in their quest to cause mischief. The two made quite the pair: one twinkle-eyed boy, the other haughty and snarky, both given to leaving trails of fireworks smell in their wake. The second thing that followed them around was laughter.

Blaise's mother was never far either, since she had a stable full of purebred granian horses and some sort of understanding with Hermione's father. Every two weeks or so, they raced their horses in the gardens or went to horse-related events. Apparently that was how they'd met, at a race in Rome where they'd both showed up, toddlers in tow. Sometimes they brunched together and took it as a given that their children popped in and out of each other's estates when the whim took them.

However, as evening turned into night, the Bourbons enjoyed quality private time in the library. Nathaniel did his finances, but he talked to Hermione as he worked: about how he managed family estates, businesses he wanted to invest in this year, once explaining the calculation of a prospective profit. Hermione told him about the latest book she'd read. It had become a regular event—dining outdoors and chatting in the library while Lucas sprawled in an armchair, drawing in his carnet with quick strokes, whiskers of charcoal on his cheeks.

Her family…definitely felt like _family_ now. After everything they'd been through and all that they'd lost, after being totally cut off for so long, it was not a surprise that it would be genuinely lovely, being together. And yet Hermione hadn't seen it coming. The last time Blaise came over, he smiled and said, "You're the real deal now, Bourbon." It may be the most frightening thing he had ever said to her.

Everything was slow and lazy these days. Everyone was in holiday mood—except Ariel who was always coming and going. Hermione could pinpoint her location in the chateau by following the smell of metal and rain-washed roses.

When Hermione told her of her boarding school choice, she said, "Challenging."

"And Beauxbatons wouldn't be a challenge? Because I'm the poster child for French society, I suppose!"

And this was what Hermione liked best about Ariel: she just nodded at that, like, _sure, fair_. "Do you know any disarming spell? I could teach you. Knocking wands out of people's hands is never not useful."

Hermione's father looked wary but he said, "Good idea" and that was…Hermione knew she shouldn't keep doubting this, but it was such an unbelievable relief. Apparently she was really, truly, honestly not going to lose him over this. So she learned the charm. She was getting good with a wand, overall. All the spells in her first-year books had worked for her so far, and she'd brewed a cure for boils in the kitchen, just to try it. Everything about the time before France, seemed so far away, like it had happened in another lifetime to another person. Her skin was tanned from playing in the gardens and riding the horses. Her face was fuller too—all the food—and her legs and arms stronger. And her hair. Nan had always said her hair was too ugly to let down, but salvation arrived in the form of Enora Zabini who'd flooed in the last week of August, personal hairdresser in tow, saying things like, 'I'm not having you walk around like a fright anymore' and 'What is Nathaniel thinking?'

Hermione sat in a chair with a paste of flowery-smelling product and foil in her hair while Mrs Zabini and the hairdresser gushed over the latest scandal in some magazine, drinking champagne like two ladies of leisure. By the time the wizard had finished pirouetting around with scissor snippets and blow-drying spells, Hermione was seized up in fear.

It actually looks good, she thought grudgingly now, examining her reflection in the mirror above her dresser. She flicked it up with both hands so it cascaded back down in a browny shower. So shiny!

"Father wants to know if you're done with your packing—" Lucas walked in her bedroom and came to a stop, frowning at her new haircut.

Hermione waited. If he expressed anything but admiration, she was going to sic their tutor on him. She really was. He'd berate her twin for her, with a lecture on politeness and etiquette, and he probably wouldn't demand any reason for it, either.

"Pretty," said Lucas with the thumbs-up. "Are you done packing or what?"

After returning the thumbs-up, Hermione gestured at the brand-new, perfectly packed suitcase and nicely pressed black robes on her bed.

"Great, because I need your help to choose what I'm going to wear to impress the other first years," Lucas said shamelessly.

Hermione rolled her eyes as she followed him. Uniforms weren't mandatory at Beauxbatons, something about encouraging individuality and creativity. Seemed he was taking this very seriously. A dozen cloaks, capes, and capelets were spread on the floor. Really, their rooms said it all: hers was tidy, possessions tucked away. Meanwhile, everything Lucas owned was obnoxiously out in the open where a person couldn't help but trip over it. She was always trying to hide away his mess, and he was always dragging things out of her room to display. Hermione suspected they were each trying to do right by the other.

Lucas held up a vibrant turquoise half-cape and a long silvery cape patterned with flamingos. "So? Which one should I wear? Which one?"

Hermione enunciated crisply, "Black."

"Why?"

"My Hogwarts robes are black. It looks… grownup."

Lucas pulled out a black velour cloak, patterned with fleur-de-lys on the inside. "You'll have to wear yours, too. So we'll match."

Hermione shook her head and went to make sense of the mess on his desk. His pheasant quill was lodged in a beret hat and spellbooks peeked from under the chair. His trunk was half-open, nicknacks spilling out.

"Honestly, Lucas, you'd better have your trunk packed properly by tomorrow! We won't have much time in the morning. Dad's going to have a fit when he sees this mess..."

"He won't. I'll tell Lolly to clean before we go down for dinner. Anyway, I'm too excited to clean, aren't you excited about Hogswot?"

Hermione levitated his quills, telescope and scales in his trunk. "It's Hogwarts and you know it. Why do you keep calling it Hogswot?"

"It's not funny if I have to explain it—do you mind tossing me that?"

It took them most of the afternoon to sort out Lucas's spellbooks and clothes and stow them inside his school trunk. They had an argument over his uniform.

"You can't _not_ take it, Lucas. I'm sure you'll need it."

"It's lame, there's no way I'm taking it—"

"No one's asking your opinion, do you want to get in trouble before you even get there?"

Their father silenced them both when he dropped in around seven o'clock, plucking a slim blue booklet from a cabinet and handing it over. _Beauxbatons Code of Conduct_ was printed on its cover and it said uniforms had to be worn during exams and special occasions.

Hermione smugly put the chic blue silk shirt, trousers, matching capelet, ankle boots and hat in the trunk while her father berated her twin for the mess. "Never mind tidying up now, I want you in the gardens—we're having guests. Your godmother and the Zabinis."

The veranda looked like a setting from a fairy story. Ivy draped the brick walls, framing the sets of glass doors opening onto the broad terrace. Bluebeard shrubs and lilac bushes gave the impression of a leafy shelter. Fairy lights and candles flickered over the peach walls, casting shadows that danced and flitted like playful sprites. The long table was draped in gold, heaped with fruit and flowers and endless dishes.

It was one of the warmest evenings of the summer. Hermione could hear the distant clip-clop of horses' hooves and calls of nightbirds. Everything was soft and mellow as if it had been there for thousands of years.

As the sun slowly lowered in the sky, they all lolled on the grass, drinking cocktails and talking about school days. Nathaniel told Hermione about Beauxbatons and how he proposed to her mother at a formal dance. Ariel reminisced nostalgically about the time her headmaster blasted a teacher in Durmstrang's mountain lake. Mrs Zabini recounted how she used to sneak out of the common room along with her classmates and throw clandestine parties, chugging firewhisky and diving into the black lake. The day they were found out, the Headmaster made a stern announcement that 'the perpetrators would be brought to justice'. Of course, being Slytherins, Enora remembered fondly, nobody was ever caught.

Hermione and Blaise exchanged eager looks and Lucas announced loudly several times that Hogswot sounded so boring, it was a school for losers—then asked for just one more story.

The sky was an endless, evening violet-blue with ribbons of red and the smell of honeysuckle drifted in the air. Hermione had never felt so happy in her life. She could sit here all night, her head on her father's shoulder, her brother pulling faces at her from across the table. Something warm stirred in her chest. Unfolding, growing, fluffy like a cushion. She thought she loved these people. She thought love wasn't an adequate word to express the emotion she felt in her chest.


	8. Chapter 8

**_8_**

King's Cross was enormous.

The Greengrasses had reached the station with thirty minutes to spare, and it was crowded with muggles, their luggage, and those coming to greet them. The steady clatter of footsteps, hissing of trains, porters' calls and whistles echoed all around her and Daphne Greengrass stood somewhat bemused with her trunk at her feet while her parents tried to attract a guard's attention. Soon her trunk was propped on a trolley and her father was leading them to the platforms.

Astoria had kept close to her all the way into London, sulky and grumbling, which was rare for a girl who normally outshouted all the other children. On her other side, her mother shot questions at her, rapid-fire.

Yes, she was sure she had everything she needed. No, she had not forgotten her black pointed hat and _yes,_ she had checked the school textbooks list. Twice.

"For goodness' sake..." Daphne's father let out an irritated sigh. "Will you stop fussing?"

"Fussing? I'm not fussing."

"Yes, you are. You've been buzzing all day as though you are the one heading to boarding school."

"Merlin forbid I ever worry on my child's first day of school, Evander."

Daphne exchanged looks with her sister as their father scoffed all over the place. "Ridiculous way of showing it, don't you think?"

Without waiting for a reply, he strolled toward the barrier between platforms nine and ten, pushing the trolley and feigning interest in the train that had just arrived at platform nine. With a meaningful look at his family, he leaned against the barrier.

Daphne clumsily imitated him. In a moment, they had fallen sideways through the solid metal onto Platform 9 ¾, which was also busy—with wizards and witches in robes saying good-bye instead of people in sharp suits going about their day—and looked up to see a gleaming scarlet steam engine waiting, with a sign overhead saying _Hogwarts Express, 11 o'clock._ As she admired the train, Daphne caught sight of her reflection in the train window and sucked in her stomach a little, hoping her stiff-new school robes didn't make her look fat. A furry brown kneazle wound between her legs, purring, and she bent over to stroke its back. The biggest challenge on the platform appeared to be avoiding stepping on one of the cats that lurked relentlessly underfoot. There were lots of owls too, and so many different smells, so many different people that it took her a couple of beats to turn back toward her family. And when she did, she went completely still.

This was because, a tall gentleman with very broad shoulders had just come through the wrought-iron arch spanning the platform. Not only was his frame big but his bearing and features on the whole were aggressive; jaw hard, cheekbones sculpted, neck and throat muscled. His stone-grey robes fit him well, though his age showed in the lines on his forehead and the grey moustache that ran down the sides of his hard mouth. And just behind him, walked a boy in black robes, who, although not his spitting image, couldn't be anything but his son.

Daphne hadn't seen Theodore Nott since his mum had a freak accident a year and a half ago. Seeing him now was quite a shock, like swallowing cold water too quickly. He was thinner, his black hair so long it hung in his eyes. He looked older. Meaner. As if this boy in front of her had bullied the Theo she knew into oblivion.

Not knowing what to say to this odd, tense stranger, she hovered, uncertain, while the adults greeted each other—rather uncomfortably too.

"It has been a long time, Thanatos," said her dad with a terse bow. "I hope you have been well."

Mr Nott nodded curtly in acknowledgement. No bow, of course. Notts didn't bow to Greengrasses. His eyes fell on Daphne, assessing. "Which one's this?" he clipped. He had met them at least a hundred times, but he could never figure out who was who, even hazard a name. One time he called Astoria 'Selena.'

"That's Daphne."

"I see."

The silence stretched and threatened to become awkward. Then Daphne's mum lit up. "Here is Ivy!" she said, smoothing her chestnut hair, rearranging the collar of her dress.

Sure enough, the Parkinsons were pushing their way through the crowd.

"Calliope, hellllllooooo," Ivy Parkinson tittered as she glided toward them. They'd all seen each other only a few weeks ago at a dinner party, but you might have thought, from the performance she gave, that they were reuniting after the war. "I'm sorry, I'm all aflutter—how _are_ you?"

"Goodness Ivy, you missed the most _ghastly_ argument the other night..."

Under her breath, Astoria mimicked their mother's usual oh-my-goodness-that-is-just-terrible tone, "Oh yes, it was _so_ awful, Ivy."

"Stop that," Daphne scolded, and just as her sister took a deep breath—she always gulped air before she said something, her sentences just kept coming until she had to breathe again—a bold-looking girl with hazel eyes, a pointed chin, and short black hair strode over to them.

"Girls!" she squealed. "So! This is the Big Day! Can you _believe_ it?"

Daphne gave a shy half-wave. She was always both a little in awe and a little afraid of Pansy Parkinson, mostly because the other girl was so unpredictable. Way back their mothers enrolled them in ballet classes, and when they were supposed to put on their tutus, Pansy threw a tantrum. "That rubbish is on the floor where it belongs," she'd yelled. "I'm not wearing it!"

It had never even occurred to Daphne that was an option.

"Did you bring a pet?" Astoria was asking Pansy, when a loud warning whistle sounded. People around them started hurrying onto the platform, parents swept down for a last hug.

"Now, have a lovely term, and don't forget to write us as soon as you get there—"

Daphne nodded dutifully, and hesitated, casting a quick glance at the Parkinsons and the Notts. "Think I look okay?" she mouthed, a bit nervously.

Her mother stepped back and surveyed her, tugging and adjusting. She smiled smugly. "You look _darling."_

"Maybe I should tie my hair up."

"Nonsense. You look fine. Do you have the money your father gave you?"

"Yes, she has it," said her father, sounding impatient. "Calliope, if she's forgotten anything we'll send it on. Train's about to go!"

He grabbed the girls' trunks along with Mr Parkinson, and chivvied them toward the train doors. Theo seemed to hesitate, looking toward his father. When the man only jerked his chin dismissively, he hurried away.

Daphne was about to follow suit but she noticed the gloomy expression on her sister's face. "I'll be back before you know it," she promised, rearranging the nine-year-old's Pettichaps scarf and kissing her cheek.

"Don't kiss me in public, I'm not a _baby_ _!_ "

"You will behave yourself, Astoria," their mother hissed. "Now, you go on, Daphne, dear. It's about to go."

Daphne's nerves tingled all over. It was finally happening. That was it. Hogwarts. She hadn't felt so nervous since she took that dance competition and when the examiner asked her what her name was she burst into tears.

Along with Pansy, they clambered onto the Hogwarts Express, and they waved at their families until there was another whistle and guards walked along, slamming all the doors shut.

"Let's find a compartment," Pansy declared, as the train picked up speed.

They set off down the corridor, dragging their trunks, peering into compartments as they went. The first carriages were already packed, full with older, mature-looking students. As they neared the middle of the train, there was some sort of commotion, a black boy holding a giant tarantula to shrieks and claps. Daphne pinched her lips together and Pansy pushed people out of their way until there were only a few compartments left... one full of girls giggling over a magazine... another with a redhead and a black-haired boy... one with an older boy stretched out on the bench, fast asleep... Pansy paused at the second to last compartment.

"There's someone in here," Daphne pointed out but the girl waved her words away.

"It's fine," she said as she opened the door with a sharp motion. "That's Zabini—my mum knows his mum."

Bet she did. Pansy's mum wasn't nicknamed Poison Ivy for nothing, she knew everyone and everyone's personal business. In the world of pureblood society, where gossip was the grease that smoothed the gears of conversation, this was quite the achievement.

Four trunks were stored in the luggage rack but only one good-looking black boy was sitting by the window. He looked like he was waiting for something to impress him. Pansy slid in next to him, and Theo hoisted their trunks into the luggage rack and plopped down across from him, sullenly and silently, as was his way. Daphne was oddly glad to see that much hadn't changed. She sat to his left, studying the stranger, Zabini, surreptitiously. He was wearing a handsome, clean-cut set of robes—Gladrags Wizardwear, she'd wager—and an annoyed expression. On top of looking very annoyed, he kept looking between the compartment door and his watch, until finally he stood and disappeared into the corridor.

Daphne had never been on a train before. It all kind of felt like a dream, the way they were being whisked away to Hogwarts. Pansy was jabbering excitedly about the Slytherin Quidditch team and older students she knew, only Theo looked like he was on a ride to somewhere he didn't want to go.

Around one o'clock there was a clattering outside and a smiling, dumpy witch pushing a food cart slid back their door and asked if they wanted anything to eat.

"No," Pansy dismissed her on behalf of everybody.

Daphne's stomach was beginning to protest that decision—she'd been too excited and nervous to eat breakfast—when the compartment door slid open again. None other than Draco Malfoy walked in, scowling, and flanked by Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. They all sat across, next to Pansy who immediately engaged them in conversation, to Daphne's relief. She'd never liked Malfoy much, and who knew what went on in the other two's thick heads? Her father always said that still waters ran deep, so maybe Vincent and Gregory had a lot more things going on than she realized. But if they did, they rarely showed signs of it. They spoke so little it was actually quite concerning.

The Hogwarts Express rattled onward, speeding them out into open country. It was during one moment the carriage was full of sunlight, the sun overhead, that Zabini reentered the compartment at last. He carried a shiny trunk and led a girl dressed in black robes so sleek they had to cost a dragon's hide.

"Slytherin, d'you reckon?" he was asking her. "He didn't look much but—"

The girl sat between Daphne and the door, her mass of brown curls swaying around her shoulders. "Well, I don't know, Blaise, do I? I _might_ have known if you hadn't broken in and started berating me before I even had a _chance_ to ask."

"Berating?" Zabini mocked.

"Rebuking," the girl snapped. "Scolding."

" _You_ were the one taking forever, Miss Snootypants. I do get to berate you."

Daphne and Pansy raised their eyebrows at each other. The girl did come off as snooty, like she thought she was better than appearances would indicate. Perhaps it was her imperious voice. Or the thick straight eyebrows that gave her a serious, almost frowning, expression. Or the way she scoffed before pulling out a yellow-and-white lunch box, a bottle of water and looking around the compartment inquisitively.

Daphne caught a whiff of fried food and her stomach made a pitiful little whimper. She smoothed out her robes, hoping no one had heard.

A vain hope. "Want some?" the girl asked. She was eating the last fragments of meat from a skewer.

"No, thank you."

Several moments of silence passed before Daphne's stomach growled again. So much for trying to look gracious and collected. She looked down at her hands, clenched them in her lap, felt her face heat up.

All of a sudden, yellow filled her vision. The brown-haired girl had shoved the box under her nose. "Take some," she demanded. "I insist."

Daphne peered inside. Grilled chicken, how appetizing. Her stomach gave another long winding growl and she quickly realized that something was better than nothing. She picked up a skewer. Took a bite. Chewed, swallowed, and instantly thought anyone who had the means and good taste to own bespoke robes should not be so ill-mannered as to lug around a packed lunch of homemade chicken, however delicious it was. She was about to admire the girl's fineries some more, when something else caught her attention. The robes—outside the fit, simplicity, excellent quality fabrics and that cutout—were actually unremarkable. Elegant, but unremarkable.

The girl's traveling cloak was _very_ remarkable.

Daphne knew all the oldest families' colours, and some of the foreign ones as well. The Malfoy crest bore serpentine creatures curled around the letter _M_ , the Greengrasses' was a crown of entwined laurels while Pansy's trunk was emblazoned with the Parkinsons' scythe. The brown-haired girl's traveling cloak was embroidered on the inside with a repeated pattern: three gold flowers threaded on cobalt blue. Fleur-de-lys, some famed French crest, of a family so grand they were practically royalty on the continent.

Daphne thought Malfoy must have noticed—you could retrace his family right back to France—only it didn't seem like he cared. He was waxing poetic about racing brooms.

The girl was talking again. "Have you memorised the set books?"

"Um," Daphne said, unintelligently. She thought maybe it was a trick question. "Haven't you?"

Apparently it was the right thing to say. "Yes! Of course. Do you know what house you'll be in yet?"

"Slytherin, hopefully, like my parents. How about you?"

"I suppose Slytherin wouldn't be bad. Ravenclaw, even. But I hear Gryffindor's pretty good too. Just—"

"Gryffindor?" Draco Malfoy made a small, disparaging noise. "Who'd want to be in Gryffindor?"

Zabini, who had shown no interest at all in the conversation until that point, glanced at him. "Hermione doesn't mind. Got a problem with that?"

"No," said Draco, but his tone said otherwise. "Why should I care if she wants to take her chances with the malodorous riffraff? People do tend to stick to their own kind."

The girl, Hermione, was gaping. "What's that supposed to mean? My kind lives in Bourges, not the slums." At their blank looks, she recited flatly, "Bourgogne-l'Archambaud. Chateau of the Bourbon family since time immemorial—or at least since my great-grandfather pulled the whole thing down and built it up again."

Bourbon… The name was familiar. It had cropped up from time to time in Daphne's lessons. There had been a Bourbon sorceress visiting the island of Avalon, Malfoy daughters marrying into the Bourbon family, a Lord Bourbon whispering in Gellert Grindelwald's ear in the spring of the Revolution. They were powerful people, important people, people so far from Daphne's touch that they might have been on the moon. There was one in her compartment. What her mother would say.

The others weren't nearly as impressed as they should have been. "I never heard that name until you spoke it just now," Pansy said cattily while Crabbe and Goyle nodded dumbly in agreement.

"Looks to me like you don't know much then," said Zabini, spreading his hands apart and looking sorrowful. "That's a mighty big name on the continent."

He had a point. Pansy, Vincent and Gregory were obviously not headed for Ravenclaw.

Draco was openly dubious. "Really," he drawled, eyeing Zabini before giving Hermione a crafty look. "Suppose you'd be a Slytherin then, wouldn't you, Bourbon? It'll be interesting to see whether they allow you in, won't it?"

The girl was gaping again. "You're saying they won't?" When Draco just smirked at her, she looked to the rest of them for confirmation.

"Slytherin's only for the elite," Pansy said with an eye-roll. Daphne tried to look sympathetic. Goyle was nodding and looking halfway intelligent. Theo was still staring out the window and pretended he didn't know any of them.

"Oh," the girl said. Impressively, it only took her a moment to regroup. "So you're all headed to Slytherin, if you've got the chance."

"Yes," said Daphne, mystified. "I mean, don't you want to be in the best house?"

Hermione Bourbon gazed speculatively around at the compartment. "I will," she decided eventually. Sounding not all that sure about it.

"If you're lucky enough," Draco leered back.

"Why don't you two duel it out? Do entertain us."

"Do shut up, Blaise."

If they did all end up in the same house, Daphne thought it was nice that they already got along so well.

. . .

"So. First years?" Bored eyes latched on Blaise. "You're a first year?"

"Yes. The name's Blaise Z—

The witch, who might have been seventeen or eighteen, brushed her black bangs out of her face impatiently. "I didn't ask for your name, my free time is limited, I haven't got all night. I'm Manami Ichijo." She tapped the badge pinned to her robes with a manicured finger. "Prefect and the one showing you around the castle. Congratulations, I guess."

Hermione didn't know what she meant by 'limited,' but it wasn't a very nice thing to say. She exchanged bewildered looks with the other first-years as they made their way out of the hall and up the big staircase. Blaise was more irritated than shocked. "Thank you, I _guess_ ," he sassed at the prefect's back.

"You lot got jokes in there after all?" She nodded over her shoulder. "Awesome. Safety tip number one: Hold on to your sense of humour. You'll need it if you want to make it through deadlines and exams. And life in general."

Hermione was beginning to wonder why they hadn't chosen a prefect more…welcoming, for the welcome. This one looked at them like she doubted they were capable of tying their shoes, let alone pass an exam.

"Library," she said, walking past a door and casually waving to it.

They waited. Eventually, it became clear that that no further information would be forthcoming. Pansy Parkinson whispered savagely, "I'm not even sure which floor we're on." Neither was Hermione.

"There's the trophy room. I've never gotten an award, I think Flint won some Quidditch thing?… And Gemma has a medal for magical merit! Yeah. Gemma's brilliant."

" _Who_ are these people," Hermione said to Blaise in an undertone. Malfoy heard them and he got this mistrustful look, like he was still not sure what she was doing among them. Suspicious idiot. It was somehow more irritating that he was not wrong: the sorting hat had considered Gryffindor. Hermione had been indignant. _Why not Slytherin?_ she'd bit out. That got her a bemused silence, then, _Very well._

"Baths," the perfect said, gesturing vaguely to a corridor again. "But not _your_ baths, of course."

"Pardon me, but whose baths are they?" Daphne Greengrass said with perfect politeness, proving yet again that whatever was wrong with Draco Malfoy wasn't the fault of the neighbourhood he'd grown up in.

"Us," Manami Ichijo said, turning and continuing her explanation while walking backwards. "The prefects. Don't use our baths; the seventh-years will kill you for sure."

"I thought we were supposed to get help from the prefects?" Hermione asked, growing steadily more baffled.

"You're supposed to _obey_ your prefects," Ichijo corrected. "Like well-trained puppies. Snakelets, if we're being pedantic. Okay, this is a shortcut to the dungeons. Common room straight ahead…on three, two, one!"

They walked in a labyrinthine passage and she stopped in front of a stretch of bare, damp stone wall. " _Viridis,_ " she said, and a stone door concealed in the wall slid open to reveal a backdrop of somber storm-greys and rich velvety greens.

The Slytherin common room fully lived up to its reputation. The walls began in shades of greens, but darkened nearly to black by the time it touched the busily patterned carpet, browns and golds and blacks shading so seamlessly together that the colour changed every time Hermione looked at it. And that was only the start of it. The doors of a respectable-looking chinoiserie cabinet were propped open to reveal a daunting array of porcelain tea sets. A gleaming wireless horn peeped coyly out of a blackwood commode, while vases of impossible antiquity shared space with delicately-enamelled boudoir clocks on the numerous carved tables.

"Oi, Ichijo," called an older boy with a gauzy bandage over his nose. He was sitting with a couple of other students in black-brocaded chairs set in a loose arc around the fireplace. "I thought you were taking the new kids on a little tour, you complete skiver."

"Can't help it if I'm fast," Manami said with a content sigh. She waved at the first-years in the same vague way she'd waved at the rooms on the tour. "New kids. Meet the other prefects, Hanley,"—the broken-nose guy—"Imogen Stretton,"—a girl with twisted buns—"and Cameron Boyle." Boyle was petting a tortoise. Boyle was beaming. Boyle was the only one in the entire common room who was smiling, Hermione noticed.

"I hate first-years," Hanley said idly. "The way they go around happy and stuff. What the fuck is there to be smiling about, that's what I'd like to know."

Hermione stepped back, terrified. The horrible thought struck her that maybe they _had_ picked someone welcoming to give the tour.

"Niles, we do need the first years," Imogen Stretton said. She clicked her fingers and swept a harsh look over the skittish group of first-years. "I do hope you lot are up to scratch. We don't want to break our sixth-year winning streak, do we?" She said to Ichijo, "Should we initiate them?"

"Are we _gossiping_?" Boyle asked happily. "Yay!"

"Yay, gossip," said Hanley with a sinister sneer. Hermione had only known him for five minutes, and already she wanted nothing to do with him. "Let's tell them about our comrades in misfortune. I want to see the looks on their faces."

"First, Gryffindors," said Stretton. "Or as I like to call them, the ambassadors of embarrassment."

"Forget they exist and you'll be fine," Ichijo said. At the other prefects' unimpressed expressions, she explained, "These clowns make me right murderous, don't mistake me. But they're not worth the trouble. Bunch of wannabes."

"Then Ravenclaw House," Hanley continued. "It's where they keep the nutcases with leaky quills. They were the ones in blue, have you seen them?"

Hermione vaguely remembered a crowd of wide-eyed, twitchy, strung-out students.

"They're super nice," Boyle said. "Don't talk to them."

"But," Daphne Greengrass hesitantly said. "But you said they were nice?"

"They are nice! But they only ever talk about weird swotty things, and if you run into them when you're tired enough, they'll try to test their crazy experiments on you."

"Like that potions partner of yours, Imogen. Abberley. Whatever happened to him?" Hanley asked with mild curiosity.

"Nothing you can prove."

Nobody reacted to that ominous statement the way Hermione had expected them to. Ichijo only shrugged philosophically, and went on, "Next, Hufflepuffs. Friendly but a bit mad. Then there's the caretaker, Filch—he already hates you. Trust me, kids, he hates you. He hates everyone. Pomfrey…she's okay. Like medical people anywhere, really. Maybe a bit more stressed. We have a ghost too, the Bloody Baron. He's not bad. If you get on his good side he'll scare people for you. Just don't ask him how he got bloodstained. And _then_ there are the professors. Our lords and masters."

"Let's start with the heads and work down," Cameron Boyle said happily. Everyone seemed to be getting quite a kick out of this. It was worrying.

"Sprout," said Stretton. "She's quite decent, as Hufflepuffs go. Her and Flitwick. They're not half bad. Of course, we're Slytherins, so you're probably only ever going to talk to them in passing, but they're perfectly adequate."

"McGonagall," said Hanley. "Transfiguration. Fair, but tough. I hear she spies on the Gryffindors in her cat form, _legend_. I hope she never leaves."

Hermione had no idea what he meant by cat form, but she could believe the general commentary. She'd actually been thrilled to see the serious Professor McGonagall again.

"Snape," Stretton said, and then everyone at the table grimaced a little. "Don't cross him," she concluded.

"And then there's Professor Binns," Boyle said cheerfully. Boyle seemed to say everything cheerfully. Maybe he had some sort of mental problem. "History. This is when I do all my napping."

"Who doesn't?" Ichijo said, fond. "Thank Merlin for old Binns."

After a while, Hermione stopped worrying. Or tried to. There were many professors, even more students, and the older students seemed to know at least one horrifying thing about every one of them. There was a new professor named Quirrell who no one knew anything about, but he looked like a proper weirdo. The headmaster was a genius but also a maniac. There was a betting pool to guess the reason of the groundskeeper's unnatural size. When the prefects were done, Hermione crawled into a four-poster bed with green silk hangings, mind whirling with way too much information and a fair bit of apprehension. She was asleep before she got a chance to write her family or talk to any of her dormmates. She did not feel ready for classes. However, as the prefects had already helpfully informed them, the only thing they needed to be prepared for on classes was staying alive, so she shouldn't worry too much.

* * *

 ** _A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews, SofiaTereseGranger, leonix2009, lyraoxford, Alexa SixT, I love reading them. and Himiko Sanada you're totally right I put the note on the first chapter, thanks for your input._**


	9. Chapter 9

**_9_**

Close on to two hundred students shared the Slytherin dungeons and Hermione had still not made one single friend.

A shame, because she'd like to hide in the library forever but between group projects and potions partners she was learning she couldn't escape people. So she had to keep trying. She had to understand. It didn't help that her classmates all knew each other, making her automatically the outsider.

"How's your mother doing?" Parvati Patil asked Pansy Parkinson as they were getting out of their first Potions lesson with the Gryffindors.

"She's fine, why do you ask?"

"Mum's asking."

"Not asking about mine, is she?" Daphne lashed out. She sounded hateful. Unlike herself.

Parvati Patil looked guilty for a second. "I don't know."

"Don't you get mad at Parvati," Lavender Brown said with a sour expression. "She didn't do anything, it's grown-up stuff."

Parvati quickly joined the rest of the Gryffindors. Lavender gave Daphne and Pansy a _you snakey bullies_ look before following suit.

This was quite confusing to Hermione. She had to work backwards through rumours to get a clue of what people were talking about. "What was that about?" she asked her classmates.

Pansy only huffed, but Daphne'd never be so rude as to ignore somebody. "Gryffindors being embarrassing," she said vaguely and Millicent Bulstrode snickered. They all breezed ahead, whispering to each other in a way that looked more secretive than how Hermione'd ever talked to anyone in her life.

She supposed she should be grateful that they talked to her at all, that she wasn't completely left out like Tracey Davis, that she didn't have to take part in girlish stuff and gossip, all these stupid things she knew she had no interest in, and yet… It stung, not being invited. Not being one of them.

"Well done, Potter," Malfoy's gleeful voice called, interrupting her gloomy thoughts. "That was quite a performance you gave in there. It's like you can't wait to be sent back to your grubby muggles, isn't it?"

Ron Weasley whirled around and made a rude gesture at him, and at Hermione by extension. She glared back, oozing with righteous indignation, and a full measure of hurt feelings. Over the summer she'd read the tale of Harry Potter at least five times, had been delighted to realize he'd be in her year, had hoped when she met him and Weasley in the train that they could maybe be friends. It had quickly become clear, however, that hope was too ambitious. Harry Potter, as it turned out, was not a powerful clever wizard. He was just a boy. A scrawny boy with Sellotaped glasses and a freckled ginger friend, and, as if that weren't enough, they both clearly hated her.

Malfoy was still in high spirits because of the way Professor Snape had wrecked Potter, and eventually settled on Hermione as the most competent person available for conversation. "They're a sorry lot, they are," he told her with malicious delight. "It's so inconsiderate to look as poor as they do. I think it's so common, don't you, using secondhand cauldrons?"

"I think you're as bad as them," Hermione informed him, nice and slow, so there'd be no misunderstanding. Then she stuck her nose up in the air and left, footsteps echoing through Malfoy's offended silence.

The week didn't get any better, with the Slytherin girls refusing—once again—to come study in the library, Blaise disappearing who-knew-where, and Hermione ending up all alone in the common room, trying to find a good seat to practice transfiguring matches into needles. And that was only the start of her problems.

A paper was pinned up on the noticeboard saying that first-years would be having flying lessons on Thursday along with the Gryffindors.

Hermione didn't know how to fly. She'd never even tried. She didn't want to try. Brooms scared her. They did this because her gran-who-wasn't-really-her-gran used to whoop her with one. They did this because they _were_ scary. Imagine sitting alone on a thin stick in the air, many meters above the ground. Now imagine the stick being very unstable, and that if you did one movement wrong, or lost your balance, you might fall off, hit the ground under you and possibly injure yourself badly and die and all sorts of stuff that was scary.

As she worked herself into a frenzy, Draco Malfoy appeared. "What is this? Flying lessons on Thursday… with the _Gryffindors_?" He sounded overjoyed. Flying was the one skill at which he was confident he would outshine everybody. To hear him say it, he was fast enough to create tides on the black lake if he flew past it. "This is _brilliant._ "

"Not really," Hermione muttered irritably. "We're not all massive fans of broomsticks. Does your family own a quidditch team somewhere or something?"

"You're a witch, you can't possibly understand. Girls are more concerned with dresses and the like, how to get shiny hair, and where to get Potter's autograph."

"Careful, Malfoy. Your jealousy is showing."

"Jealous? _Me?_ I know it's near impossible for _you_ , but don't be ridiculous."

"You do have to admit Harry is unquestionably the most talked-about and admired person at school."

Her classmate shot her an irritated look that clearly asked, 'Where is this going?'

"This would naturally anger somebody like you," Hermione went on delicately, "like a slur on your family name. Must be why you're always bullying the Gryffindors. Especially Potter and Weasley. Jealousy."

The 'Where is this going?' faded into 'Are you out of your mind?'

"I'm not trying to be rude, but—"

Draco Malfoy was posh enough to disregard pesky things like manners. "Shut up, Bourbon. You don't know anything about my life, so keep your little nose out of it if you know what's good for you."

Prat. Somebody really ought to give him the licking he so richly deserved _._ "I also got wizarding blood going back centuries, doesn't mean I can't appreciate Gryffindor. Anyway, I'm not asking you to cozy up to them, but couldn't you at least leave them alone? You're pushing your luck, what if you get caught by a professor and lose us points, as your housemate I—"

"Have no right to tell me what I can or cannot do," Malfoy hissed. "You're not my mother. Actually, you're a nobody, so shut up."

"Fine! I don't care!" Hermione bristled. "No wonder people would rather be friends with Harry Potter instead of you—I would pick him over you any day!"

Something nasty glimmered in Malfoy's grey eyes. "The only way Potter's ever going to talk to you is if you do his homework for him. Because you're a lousy, _lousy_ witch. Merlin," he snorted, "haven't you realized Parkinson and Greengrass don't like you? Zabini let them know you lived in some big castle, so they'd accept being seen with a teacher's pet. How sad, fancy having to smarm up to a French sissy!"

Hermione drew herself up, cheeks flaming. "At least—at least I'm not obsessed with two Gryffindors who want nothing to do with me."

"Maybe _they_ 're obsessed with me!"

"Maybe I'm the tooth fairy!"

"The tooth…?" Malfoy didn't know whether to be angry or just confused. "Is that supposed to be an insult?"

Hermione was about to tell him what really constituted an insult when someone came into the common room.

An expectant hush fell over just as the secret stone door closed back behind a teenager. Brown hair ruthlessly buzz cut against his scalp, purple circles under his eyes, shiny badge. Visibly deranged. Niles Hanley, sixth-year prefect.

Draco took this opportunity to flee, pivoting on his heels and stomping to the dormitories.

Hermione was about to do the same when she was asked, "Hey, you there. Whats-your-name, Bougon? Nah, Bourbon? What's up?"

"I reckon that's none of your business."

Hanley didn't respond. What he did was stare expressionlessly at her in a way that immediately got her talking. When she was done, he asked, "Why didn't you tell somebody instead of telling him off yourself? That's what we're for."

Hermione startled. It had occurred to her, but it seemed like a situation she had to deal with herself.

"You shouldn't take the law into your own hands," Hanley counselled. "That way it'll be you who ends up in trouble."

She listened because she respected him, but what he was saying didn't sound right. If you didn't have a choice, if you wanted to get things done, you did have to take the law into your own hands. If you were hungry and no one would feed you, then you had to steal food from the fridge; that was how real life worked.

The prefect was staring at her curiously. "You've had quite a stressful week, haven't you? All the running around…"

"Well, our first Potions class was certainly an experience."

"Ah! You met Snape!' His face cleared. "No wonder you're feeling all messed up. You work yourself too hard, Ichijo was telling me about it, you're that kid who gets up at seven to study every morning, aren't you?"

"I do like to knock out a couple of chapters before breakfast," Hermione admitted.

He pushed her toward the corridors. "Go to bed, Bourbon. And can you take the afternoon off work at all? Tell you what, I'll talk to Malfoy—boys can be such little shits at that age—don't worry."

"I don't think—"

"Just go along with it. I've been looking for a chance to destroy this kid."

Hermione went along with it. Good to have some of the mad people on her side, for a change. There was a new spring in her step as she ran toward the wide corridors that led to the dorms.

"A new addition to the goon squad?"

Hermione turned round. She found herself looking down at a head of hair, so black it shone blue under the greenish candlelights. Theodore Nott sat in an armchair, so quiet and unobtrusive, she'd walked past without even noticing him. Despite the fact they were classmates, it was the longest thing he had ever addressed to her. She didn't count the time he said 'Mind lending me a quill?' in Herbology.

"Pardon?"

"Malfoy," he said, lethargically. "Seems like you're close friends. Are you telling me you like Crabbe and Goyle too?"

Hermione wasn't sure she liked his tone. "Not close friends," she said stiffly. "Not any kind of a friend, in fact. Just classmates."

"Right. I didn't mean to offend. Your conversation sounded interesting."

"Why, what did you hear?"

There was a sudden racket behind him, which turned out to be a gang of girls falling about with hilarity, standing back up, and collapsing into giggles again. Now that's what a Friday evening was meant to be like. Just a bunch of friends having fun. How come Hermione was stuck talking to this awkward dullard? She winced. That was not nice of her. And she was not about to start losing her manners just because this prat Malfoy got her upset. Besides, Nott might be a little on the reserved side, but Blaise liked him. "And," she went on more politely, "what are you up to?"

Nott snorted. "I've asked myself the same question. Sitting back home watching water boil would've been a better use of a day."

Hermione stared at him. "But… we're at a boarding school!'

He stared back. "So?"

"Well, there's food, and amazing books… and all these different people…"

His mouth gave a twitch. "I already have food and books. And I have nothing to say to a single one of these people. But I see your point. School's better than home in many other ways." It seemed to be a long speech for him and he stopped abruptly, as if he had used up his quota of words for the day.

As Hermione watched him disappear down the corridor, she realized he hadn't really answered any of her questions.

Next morning at breakfast, it looked safe enough for her to go sit with her classmates. Pansy was busy talking Blaise's ear off, and Malfoy was sipping his pumpkin juice, looking slightly less arrogant than usual. He even handed her a glass when she sat down. Well, he slammed it down malevolently. But it was an improvement. Hanley must have had words with him.

"Hermione," said Blaise, shoving a chunk of bread across the table to her, "you have to taste this."

"What is it?"

"Rolls."

"But I don't like rolls."

"You'll like these rolls."

Hermione chewed off part of it. Blaise was right. When it came to food, Blaise was always right. "Did you get through all of your Transfiguration homework?" he asked. "I've been working on that formula McGonagall gave us for ages. The variables of wand power and concentration, I could understand, but that part about bodyweight has been driving me crazy."

Hermione was explaining that weight was proportional to the difficulty of the spell when she was interrupted by the post. To her pleasure, three owls soared down and dropped letters onto her lap. A screech owl with the latest issue of _Magie d'Aujourd'hui—_ French newspaper—then Lucas's owl's turn, and they had hardly fluttered out of the way that one of the school birds dropped a letter.

Who would be writing to her from school? She ripped it open, frowning. It said,

 _Miss Bourbon,_

 _I am sorry to hear about your medical condition that makes it impossible for you to ride a broom. You are thereby exempt from Thursday's flying lesson._

 _R. Hooch_

Hermione had difficulty hiding her bewilderment as she handed the note to Blaise. This particular problem had been bugging her all weekend and it was solved just like that, out of nowhere?

"You can thank your dad for that one," Blaise said when he was done reading. "Have you been crying your swotty little heart out to him?"

Hermione had in fact complained to her father in her last letter. "What…? It wasn't that serious. Why would he take the trouble to—?"

Blaise got serious, in that mock-serious way he had where you never knew if he was clowning or not. "Of course he's going to take it seriously, Lord Bourbon loves you more than anyone could love anything in the world. You can tell that in thirty seconds."

"A little melodramatic, don't you think?" Hermione said, weighing the benefits of spending Thursday afternoon studying against the drawbacks of having to miss out on British wizard experience. Sadly, she had plans for her school path—like being the best student to ever grace the corridors of Hogwarts—so the study-afternoon won.

Pansy leaned over. "Are you skipping flying lessons? You can't do that. That's against your _morals_ or something."

Hermione folded the note. She did feel guilty. But not as bad as she would have felt if she had to ride a broomstick. "It's _not_ skipping, and even if it were I can give you a bunch of good reasons why I have no other choice. The alternative being that I would be stuck in a ridiculously dangerous class, with rubbish security, rubbish gear, and at the end nothing for my father to boast to his friends about. I'm doing everyone a favour, really. And _why_ do we have to take flying classes in the first place? Frankly, safety provision at Hogwarts is unacceptable and should be reviewed by the Ministry's Department of Magical Education immediately."

That cracked Pansy up. Things that she found funny were highly unpredictable. "GREENGRASS," she yelled, "you've GOT to listen to this."

Daphne stopped playing with her cashmere scarf. "I beg your pardon?" Beside her, Theodore Nott just sat there, saying nothing. They made a good couple—a silent, poker-faced couple.

"Don't you laugh at me, Pansy."

"She tells me the funniest stuff I've heard all year, and then she says don't laugh. This is _aweso—_ "

"Shut up, Sissy," cut in a voice from the other end of the table. Chairs were scraping against the floor as a bunch of giant blokes stood and the biggest of them all started Terminator-marching toward them. He was rugged-featured, with black stubble and a heavy brow over deep-set eyes. "Stop being so fucking loud, first thing in the morning," he said when he was close enough to loom over them.

With a squeal, Pansy stood and threw herself at him in a tackle-hug, utterly unmoved by the fact that sixth-years and above were the scariest thing ever. "Marcus! No 'good morning'? No 'and how did you sleep, pretty witch?' No introduction to your friends?"

'Marcus' grabbed her by the collar and lifted her up, peeling her off him like she was a kitten. Bringing her up to his eye level, he said, "No noogie, no fist in your face. You've been lucky so far. Keep up the bullshit, though, and I might just drop you on your dumb little head."

" _Hey!_ Put me down this instant you troll-faced—"

Hermione grabbed Pansy's dangling shoe. "We'll be late to class." That wasn't the case, but she was trying to avoid bloodshed.

Marcus snorted and set Pansy back on her feet. "Try to keep an eye on this maniac," he ordered Hermione before stalking back to his big, scary friends. People gave them a wide berth, as if they expected him to draw an axe and come after them.

"Marcus's captain of the Slytherin team," Pansy explained when they were on their way to History. "He's my second cousin, once removed."

"I can see it," said Blaise.

"Ugh, he's way too big and annoying, but I guess most wizards are." Pansy launched into a story about how they went to Greece on holiday and her cousin went insane while they were touring museums in Athens. It required a lot of patience, she explained, and Marcus had none. "Our mums told us to sketch these old skeletons of famous dead Greek wizards. Marcus tore up his paper and threw all his pencils on the floor. He's kind of a giant retard and his friends are just… weirdoes, and mentally, they're all three years old. He's always flunking all his classes. They actually put him in some remedial Potions class because he brews like somebody who doesn't understand English."

"Remedial Potions?" Hermione said with a scoff. "With Professor Snape?"

"Yup, along with some other retards. They're _that_ terrible. It's a shock at first, but you get used to it."

Hermione was finding out she was good at getting used to a lot of things. Within two months, everything about Hogwarts seemed normal: the solemn, high-ceilinged halls and the rusted moving stairs, the aquamarine creatures shimmering behind the common room's windows, Lucas's daily letter arriving by owl in the Great Hall, Pansy Parkinson's soft snores in the four-poster bed next to hers, the ceaseless, noisy swarms of students pushing past each other, laughing with each other, shouting at each other. No, she didn't have trouble adapting to the school.

What she failed to adapt to was the same thing she'd been always failing to adapt to, as Malfoy had so helpfully pointed out: people.

Her foolish hopes that her classmates might one day grow to like her were soon dashed. She was in the library, tackling an essay for Binns on the inventor of self-stirring cauldrons when a throat cleared. She looked up to find Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, and Dean Thomas standing over her table.

"D'you mind if we sit there, since it's big enough for all of us?" Thomas asked. "Unless you're waiting for all your mates."

Hermione pretended not to hear his joking tone and grabbed her bag. "I'm not waiting for anyone."

The three of them exchanged a look, then Weasley snorted. "Yes, Bourbon. We know. I bet my wand you're never waiting for anyone."

"Can I bet mine too?" Thomas said with a laugh.

Hermione had a twin. She had books. She didn't need anyone. Even as she thought it, she felt a pressure in her throat, a burning in her eyes. The unsaid word _lonely_ continued to rattle in her chest. _Homesick._ "What you can both do is stop being prats." It came out in a whisper.

Potter's brow creased. Oh, no. Concern.

She looked up at the ceiling, trying to make the tears drain back to where they came from. When she looked back, the Gryffindors were still standing there awkwardly. To cry in front of these childish idiots would be the ultimate humiliation. "You know what, it's all yours." She quickly grabbed her things, then ran out the door, knowing as she did that she couldn't run fast enough to leave her annoying self behind.

. . .

The common room was packed and smelled delicious, people were eating food that had been sent up. Hermione, however, was in her bed, silent.

It was the silence of post-hysteria exhaustion, and she'd been observing it for a very long time. Even though there was something about being alone in the dark that brought her back to her earlier fears, and her earlier fears were something special. Facing-a-troll-kind of special. She felt swallowed by the space; tiny, weak, fragile. The idea of sleep was terrifying, so she padded to the bathroom, eyed her brightly lit reflection in the mirror. Pale cheeks, wide eyes, wrinkled robes. Not exactly a sinister image, for someone who'd just survived a deadly creature.

She decided to write her family a letter laying out the apocalyptic evening, if only to have something to do. A highly-edited version, of course. No mention of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley's parts, because she was tempted to think the unintended consequences would be pretty dire, and she didn't want to get them in trouble. She'd never dreamt there would be a time in her life when she'd feel _responsible_ for the two reckless fools.

But she'd also never dreamt there would be a time in her life when she'd be standing there frozen in fear facing a twelve-foot _mountain troll,_ up against a bathroom wall and alone and helpless. And then watching these two fools burst in and save her life. Worried about _her_.

Alright, so Weasley might have been the reason she was even in the girls' toilets in the first place, but still—they didn't have to risk a marauding beast to find her, especially when they weren't exactly friends. Again, they did inadvertently lock it in the bathroom with her, but as soon as they realised, they rushed in to rescue her without a thought for themselves. And that charm on the troll's club to knock it out? Clever. She'd severely underestimated them, and she'd overestimated herself. What did it matter if she could answer all the questions in class if she couldn't use magic when she really needed it?

"Bourbon?" called the eternally nervous Tracey Davis, fidgeting in the doorway.

Hermione was too exhausted and drained even to find the fidgeting annoying. "What is it?" she asked, leaning back in her bed and putting her quill down.

"I wanted…" Fidget, fidget. How did this girl end up in Slytherin? "I didn't see you downstairs. And at the banquet earlier. Are you okay?"

Hermione tilted her head. It had recently come to her attention that the girls in her year looked down on Davis, for some reason. Like in astronomy this week, when they had to work in groups and draw a map of the solar system.

"We should split things up," Pansy had said, "Hermione, you do the scale and measurements. Daphne'll fill in the chart, I'm on the telescope, and Millicent's in charge of supplies."

"Fine with me," Hermione readily answered. "Tracey, do you want to—"

"I want a good grade," Pansy interrupted her with a bruising look. "Let's just divide it between us."

Davis had reddened but pretended she didn't notice she was being excluded. Pansy was always doing that, tripping her and being snide to her—not that Hermione'd ever seen Pansy being nice to somebody. But it dawned on her, the realisation that nobody really wanted to be around Davis. And yet she wasn't resentful about it; she was asking Hermione about her health, instead. Hermione felt guilty that none of this crossed her mind before, and she was finally nodding when the other girls showed up.

"Hermione? Where have you been? You skipped Herbology."

Tracey Davis shuffled her feet. "Yeah. I was just asking her. About it."

Daphne looked around and asked, "Did you girls hear a sort of grunting noise?"

"So _that's_ where the troll went," Pansy said with a mock-gasp. "Gosh, somebody better call the prefects!"

Tracey went to her bed with her shoulders hunched and her head down.

"You'd think that out of courtesy to others she'd keep out of public view," Pansy said. "Especially when she wears these muggle rags."

Possibly unfair treatment of Davis notwithstanding, Hermione was definitely too tired for this. The girls' petty bickering had a slimy feel to it—a little too Vivienne de Rippert-esque, maybe. "I don't think you should judge people by their clothes."

"You're too naive, Hermione," said Daphne. "These things matter. Would you go to classes with your robes wide open, for example? The next thing you know you'll be dressing like a Weasley."

"Whatever—if I'm not being too rude, I think I want to get some sleep. Busy day tomorrow, what with being off today."

The following day was, indeed, busy. Hermione heard back from her family. Lucas was both envious and proud, Ariel's note said that 'Samhain's an auspicious day for your first fight' and 'No worries, I've talked down your father from storming the school' and Hermione wondered if she ought to be worried about that. Word of the troll incident had already spread everywhere in the castle. Wherever she went, people pointed at her and murmured something about toilet water. Pansy had laughed so hard about the whole thing she'd risked losing whatever little sanity she had, Daphne had opined the school should let their parents know about it—because it was quite serious, wasn't it?—and like Malfoy, Blaise was of the opinion it was a pity the Gryffindors got out of it unscathed.

Not only the Gryffindors were safe and sound—they were thrilled by the adventure. Hermione had a growing suspicion that they were always happiest in the midst of mayhem. They were waiting for her in the dungeons before their potions lesson, lurking in a way that could give the Bloody Baron a run for his money.

"We wanted to say," Harry started. "Thanks for getting us out of trouble like that, yesterday."

"It was the right thing to do." Hermione'd made their problem with McGonagall her problem, just as they'd made her problem with the troll their problem. Least she could do.

"Right, you should be thanking us," Ron said shortly. "We saved your life."

"You locked me in there," Hermione snapped back. "We're even!"

Harry smiled with disorienting good humour. "Yeah, bad move, that. You must be losing your touch, Ron."

"It was your idea," Ron immediately said, "and that's exactly why you will never beat me at chess."

Harry grinned over at Hermione as if they were in on a joke, and she smiled back, still not sure whether these two were good for her or not. Hopefully she won't regret saving their hides.


End file.
